


The Grey Areas

by bountyhuntergirl, inkstiel (Theconsultingdetective)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (Technically future mpreg), Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom Castiel, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Brain-Damaged Character, Dry Humping, Explicit Sexual Content, Hamsters, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mpreg, Murder, Oral Sex, Rimming, Top Dean, Violence, cursing, graphic depictions of gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-02 23:49:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8688355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bountyhuntergirl/pseuds/bountyhuntergirl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theconsultingdetective/pseuds/inkstiel
Summary: Police!Dean, Assassin!Cas. Three mysterious murders in two days sends Officer Dean Winchester out on a seemingly wild goose chase through crime scene after crime scene, looking for a non-existent killer with a past that's beyond just himself. However, sometimes not everything's so black-and-white, and falling fast in love with a slightly-addled, cottage-owning, hamster-loving, coffee-brewing serial killer might just bleed Dean's black and white together, until right and wrong don't quite have proper names anymore. (Part 1 of 3.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> So originally our DCBB entry was supposed to be much, MUCH shorter than what we're presenting day, but as we got into this fic over the past few months, and as we just kept writing and coming up with ideas and parts -- it was just impossible to do it how we'd planned! So right now, we're posting what we consider the "first stage" of this fic, one out of three. The last two stages will be posted in the undetermined future, but here's a great start to a fic both myself and Bella have had so much fun writing together. 
> 
> If you guys like it, please let us know! We're about a third of the way into our part two or so, and then part three will conclude the series, but we want to know that what we're writing is interesting and drawing up a good story for you readers! Kudos and comments are always, always, ALWAYS read and loved on, so please give us some virtual cookies.
> 
> Thank you so much to horrorfemme, who pinch-hit us very last minute and did the incredible work for this fic. You've been a great partner, and your art is SPECTACULAR. Thank you for joining up with us so last minute; we can't thank you enough. The rest of the art for this DCBB can be found here: 
> 
> http://horrorfemme1138.tumblr.com/post/153831933091/my-art-for-the-dcbb-the-grey-areas-by

 

Geoffrey Welsh jerked when the office’s wall clock gave a mighty _bong,_ greeting the new hour with a resounding, hollow ring. He exhaled, startled, groaning when he looked at the hands of the clock, one over the other, both pointed toward the sky. Midnight; shit. He’d promised Betty that he’d put the numbers and tax forms down and be home by ten, but… well. It was going to be another night on the couch for him, it seemed. He sighed heavily, rubbing at his eyes. Sleep sounded perfect right then. He’d head home, he decided, and try to make amends in the morning with a heaping amount of blueberry apology pancakes for Betty and a trip to the ice cream shop for the kids. He groaned, grabbing his suitcase and shoving his papers into it, standing and shaking out his legs before shuffling toward the elevator. Moonlight, white and clean, streamed through the nearby windows, casting a shadow of the man and his briefcase onto the shining linoleum floor.

There wasn’t any sound, really, and maybe that was what initially made the hairs on the back of Geoffrey’s neck stand up as he waited before the elevator, listening to the gentle whir of the lift as it ascended slowly from the first floor up to the one he was currently on, twenty floors up.

 

The dial above the shaft ticked; first floor. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. That odd feeling tingled at the back of Geoffrey’s neck again, like some kind of warning. He suddenly felt oddly vulnerable, as if he were alone in a clearing, a fish in open water.

 

When the doors dinged open, he felt a sense of misplaced relief, stepping inside, into the little space with its cool lighting and its faux wood panels. He didn’t see the glint of metal until it was too late.

 

_Fwip._

 

The elevator doors made to close as Geoffrey’s body collapsed forward, and they caught against his shoulders, sliding back into their resting places. His cheek was pressed against the ground where his head had landed, and from the angle he laid, the dagger that had flown through the air was set dead in his forehead, embedded nearly to the handle. His eyes remained

open, but cold, empty. There was almost no blood surrounding the blade; the fit was so tight, allowing no space for anything to pass through.

 

There were footsteps after a moment, and then a shadowy figure appeared, leather-gloved hand reaching down to the body. With a sickening noise, the figure yanked the blade from Geoffrey’s skull, then came up to tuck it away in his scabbard. The knees of the person standing there bent, gloved hand reaching down to tug up the back of Geoffrey’s coat, then his shirt, exposing the smooth skin of the man’s back. The man drew another knife, something smaller, more precise, and leaned in to finish his work.

 

It took only a moment, and then the other knife was put away, and the man was back on his feet, turning away, humming softly as he loped toward the emergency stairwell, leaving the body behind. The elevator doors moved to shut again, caught on Geoffrey’s body, and slid back into place.

 

There was silence after that.

 

~*~

 

It was still raining when Dean got home. He toed off his wet shoes at the door and immediately broke into a fresh six-pack, setting the groceries on his counter, the somewhat cold lights of his house illuminating the frozen dinners he'd picked up on his way back from work. Tonight, it would be frozen lasagna, with its clingy plastic and edges that blackened no matter how attentive he was. Tomorrow, he'd eat at Nick’s Diner with his partner, Benny. The next day, it was fast food burgers. Then homemade tacos. Then greasy delivery pizza. Same old, same old.

 

Not like that was so bad, Dean figured as he cranked the oven on with the pitiful Italian meal inside and took his cold beer to the couch. With his job as an officer of the law not offering that much predictability, sometimes it was nice to be able to say what he was gonna eat for dinner on August 8th of the next year.

 

Sometimes.

 

Doctor Sexy M.D., thank the _gods,_ was already on when Dean flipped on the television, and it gave Dean a sense of relief, at least, that there was some good luck for him there, being able to watch his favorite show with his drink.

 

“But Doctor Sexy,” one of the nurses sighed, setting a hand against his chiseled chest as Dean took a pull from his drink. “I can't leave you! I love you!”

 

Dean made a little “psh” noise, feet up on the footrest of his recliner, just as his phone rang, trilling from the little table beside Dean, interrupting the evening Dean had just gotten started.

 

“Hello?” Dean huffed, grabbing it without a glance to the caller ID.

 

 _“Hey, kid,”_ came Bobby Singer’s sigh from the other end. _“You ain’t gonna like this.”_ Dean took a deep breath.

 

“Probably not. But you're gonna tell me anyways, huh?”

 

 _“Murder downtown,”_ Bobby said, confirming Dean’s statement. _“And it’s… a doozy.”_

 

“Yeah, alright,” Dean sulked, unfazed. “I can be there in ten; just gimme the address.”

 

 _“Roman Corps. in downtown Lawrence. The big’n.”_ Dean nodded.

 

“See you there, boss.”

 

 _“See you,”_ Bobby replied, before hanging up. Dean set down his beer and tugged his shoes back on, only to be interrupted by a billow of smoke and a burning smell emanating from the oven.

 

“Shit,” he hissed, scrambling over to the oven, yanking it open to get hit by a gust of stench and acrid smoke. As soon as the crisis of a burned lasagna and some warped plastic was averted, he was out the door and on the road.

 

Jo was waiting calmly outside the building for Dean when he arrived, her hair twisted up in a knot, eyebrows raised at him. “Better late than never,” she teased.

 

“Shut up,” Dean grumbled. “I had a lasagna fiasco. What're we lookin’ at here?”

 

Jo sighed. “Honestly?” she asked, going serious, fast. “It looks like some kind of assassination.” Dean raised his eyebrow.

 

“‘S the vic someone worth assassinating?”

 

“We’re not sure yet, but it doesn’t really look like it. This guy seems too normal.” Dean hummed, lifting the crime scene tape to approach the body. Forensics was swarming everywhere, crouched on the ground, snapping photos and setting out exhibit numbers.

 

“Got an ID?” he called, a different voice than Jo’s answering.

 

“This here’s Geoffrey Welsh,” Bobby cut in, approaching with photocopies of the contents of the victim’s wallet. “52, Lawrence native, PR rep here at Roman Corps.”

 

“Doesn't sound like somebody worth offin’,” Dean muttered, adding to the corpse, “No ‘ffence, ‘course.”

 

“You ain’t wrong,” Bobby agreed, shaking his head. “This guy’s got nothin’ about him that calls for assassinatin’. The whole thing was too precise to be a murder, though. It’s too detailed for someone to have killed ‘im jus’ to kill ‘im.”

 

Dean nodded.

 

“Got that right. Somethin’ about this is weird.”

 

He looked through the small cluster of Forensic workers, down at the body.

 

“C’n anybody make anything ‘a these weird cuts?” he asked, kneeling by the corpse’s side, investigating the carved symbols.

 

“We sent pictures of them back to the station,” Jo said, nodding. “They look like… I dunno. Some kind of ritual symbols.”

 

“Which would explain the nature’a the killin’,” Bobby agreed.

 

Dean crossed his arms, rocking back onto his heels. “So what, you're sayin’ our perp just decided to off some random sap, in the name ‘a a ritual?” he asked, a bit disbelieving. “What for? Why him?”

 

Bobby shrugged. “Nothin’ said _he_ was random either.” Bobby sighed. “Until we get reports back from the station, we’re goin’ off of basically nothin’. We need to talk to the family. What time is it?”

 

Dean checked his watch, then sighed. “One thirty seven,” he answered. “Who found the body?”

 

“One of the janitors here,” Jo said, motioning over at a bench a few yards away. A woman sat there, a coat pulled awkwardly around her shoulders. She looked nervous at the rush of activity, her leg tapping almost uncontrollably. “She was moving to clean the upstairs when she found him.”

 

Dean looked over to her and sighed, exhausted, turning back to Jo. “I'll talk to her, if you wanna go see the family. You know I ain't good with news like this.”

 

“Oh, I know you’re not,” Jo hummed. “Trust me, I won’t forget the first and last time we tried to let you tell the family what happened.”

 

“I was doin’ my best,” Dean grumbled, in a tone Benny would’ve described as ‘damn fussin’.’ “I can't be good at everything, I gotta leave somethin’ for the rest of you.”

 

Bobby scoffed. “Don’t be an ass, Winchester.”

 

“It’s his natural state,” Jo chimed in easily, rolling her eyes, a smirk on her lips.

 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, put a sock in it, Officer. I'm goin’ to talk to the janitor.”

 

“Hurry up, then,” Jo insisted. “Time-waster.”

 

“Fine,” Dean snapped, “trouble-maker.”

 

“Would you two idjits get a move on already?” Bobby snapped. “Winchester, go on, get some answers outta the janitor.”

 

With a huff, Dean yielded and walked away, approaching the janitor. She was a short woman, somewhat battered by time and experience, her coarse grey-brown hair pulled away from her face, an orange blanket around her hunched shoulders. She looked up when Dean approached, her eyes wide, a certain mix of nervousness and hesitation in the gaze she laid on him.

 

“Hi,” Dean greeted gently, taking a seat beside her, giving her his best, softest, “you can trust me” smile. “My name’s Dean, I'm an officer with Lawrence County PD. You feel like answering a few quick questions for me?”

 

She swallowed. “Uh… s-sure,” she croaked softly, obviously still somewhat shaken from her ordeal.

 

“Alright,” Dean nodded, taking out a small voice recorder and starting it up. “So, around what time was it when you found the body?”

 

“Uh… m-midnight? I think… I think it was midnight.” Dean nodded, making a note- _Body @ midnight_.

 

“Alright. And what condition was he in when you found him?” he asked, gingerly.

 

She swallowed, her voice thick when she spoke again, increasingly anxious. “I… uh… he was… he was d-dead.” She exhaled heavily, shaken. “He was d-dead.” Dean nodded again.

 

“Now, was there anyone else in the building at this time of night? Maybe other office workers, other janitors, security people…?”

 

She shook her head. “I’m the l-last custodian to go,” she mumbled. “I l-lock up everything after I clean the t-top floor.” Dean made another note-- _Janitor Lady last out_ \--and nodded.

 

“Alright,” he agreed. “Did you see anyone, or anything, unusual tonight?”

 

“I mean… n-not besides… besides _this….”_

 

“Does the victim _usually_ work this late?”

 

She shrugged. “S-sometimes. Maybe three or f-four times a week.”

 

“Did you know Mr. Welsh?”

 

She shrugged. “N-not really. He j-just said h-hi to me s-sometimes.” Dean smiled, writing more shorthand notes on his small pad of paper.

 

“So he was a pretty decent guy, huh? Not a big trouble-maker?”

 

“I g-guess so.” Dean nodded.

 

“Well, if you think of anything else for me, just give me a call, okay? I'll give you my number, and if anything else comes to mind--anything about Mr. Welsh, anything unusual you saw tonight, anybody who might wanna hurt Mr. Welsh--just let my office know.”

 

The custodian sniffed again, nodding, reaching out and shakily taking the card that Dean handed her, his name and number printed on it in small, black letters.

 

“Thanks for your help,” he said, earnestly, “and if you need to talk about...what happened tonight...we have people and services who can help you.” He gave her his warmest, shaking-witness, shock-blanket-in-an-expression, smile. “Would it make you more comfortable to have a mpolice escort home?”

 

She bit her lip. “I… I d-don’t w-want to be t-trouble…” she mumbled. Dean shook his head.

 

“You're no trouble at all,” he assured her. “Officer Fitzgerald here would be happy to help you get home safe.” He waved the young beat cop over, who appeared like an eager puppy. “Garth, how about giving Miss…”

 

“Miss,” she croaked softly, nervously. “M-Miss Harris.”

 

“Miss Harris,” Dean nodded, “an escort home?”

 

Garth nodded eagerly, grinning almost goofily. “Sure thing! No problem!”

 

“Awesome,” Dean agreed, turning back to Miss Harris. “Thank you for your help, ma’am. Call anytime.”

 

She nodded quietly, eyeing Garth a moment before getting up to follow the jumpy and excitable cop. Jo and Bobby, meanwhile, still waited nearby, conversing quietly until Dean returned, at which time they both looked up, brows raising in question.

 

“Well?” Jo asked, curious.

 

“Well, nothing unusual, apparently. He was dead when she found him, and she's the last out every night, but she says she didn't see anyone unusual. ‘Pparently he was a decent guy, far as she knew him, worked late a lot… that's all she had for me.”

 

Bobby sighed. “S’not much help,” he muttered, “but it could be a start.”

 

“How?” Jo asked, frowning.

 

“Well, the man worked late,” Bobby said, “an’ his files said he had a wife an’ kids. I don’t know a woman alive that wouldn’t be mad if her husband worked late all the time.”

 

“You're sayin’ you think it's some housewife?” Dean asked, incredulous.

 

“Yeah, I dunno about that, boss,” Jo agreed. “As much as I hate to say it, Winchester might be right.”

 

Bobby raised his brows, crossing his arms. “Then tell me, who do _you two_ think it could be?” he asked plainly, knowing they had nothing to go on. Dean shrugged.

 

“Maybe it's some kind of business thing, right? I mean, he was pretty high up in the company, maybe it was corporate espionage or something.”

 

“Dean, this is an insurance sales. Our guy didn't have the nuclear codes, he was just a office worker,” Jo said. “I think he saw something he wasn't supposed to see. Wrong place, wrong time, you know?”

 

Bobby rolled his own eyes. “I didn’t even say I thought it might be the wife,” he huffed, uncrossing his arms. “I’m sayin’ that if we’re lookin’ for more information on this guy, we gotta start with the family.” Dean nodded.

 

“I'll get over to their place, then. A guy like this probably has an assistant, too, right? Maybe a secretary? Judgin’ by our vic’s schedule, I figure she’d know as much as the wife. Hell, maybe more.”

 

Jo nodded in agreement. “I’ll look up the assistant, then,” she said. “See what I can find out while you check out the family.”

 

“You two get movin’, then,” Bobby grunted. “An’ try to be quick about it, would’ya?”

 

“You got it, Chief,” Dean agreed, raising his hand in a quick, if a little sarcastic, salute before walking with Jo to the elevators. “So, this is your first big time murder, huh?” he asked, teasing. “Havin’ fun yet?”

 

She just grinned up at him. “Is that even a question?” Dean shook his head fondly.

 

“We’re a couple of sick puppies, you know that?” he asked, stepping into the elevator when it arrived with a ding. He stood there for a second, then perked his head up a little. “Hey, you think there’s a record somewhere of where the elevator goes, and when? On some computer in the basement, or something?”

 

Jo frowned a little. “Maybe,” she said. “Probably. Why?”

 

“It'll give us a better idea of exactly when the murder happened,” Dean said. “Look, the janitor said she does this floor last of all. So whenever the elevator came up here, that's when the perp showed up. When it went back down, that's when he left. ‘N the more specific our time, the more useful our alibis are gonna be. It'll tell us whether our killer’s experienced or not, too, ‘cause the longer the gap, the longer he took to do the deed, the less he musta known what he was doin’.”

 

Jo nodded slowly. “And what if the gap isn’t long at all?” she questioned carefully, down-turned brows creasing her forehead.

 

“Well, I reckon that means they got in and out quick. Which means they could take the guy out quick, knew just what to do to put him outta commission. Means they’ve probably done this before, or else they've thought about it for a real long time.”

 

“Which means they’re dangerous?” Jo asked, though it was more of a statement than a question. Dean nodded.

 

“Which means we gotta work fast.”

 

~*~

 

The sound of a screaming alarm clock went off precisely at nine AM, and Castiel startled awake, blinking hard, his vision cloudy on the edges with sleep. He didn’t groan, though he felt exhausted enough to, just let his eyelids flutter tiredly for a moment before he reached out, turning off his clock’s blaring alarm with a flick of a finger. When he pulled his hand back, he caught the sight of blood staining his skin, thick under his fingernails, and he waited a moment before slowly sitting up, slipping his legs over the side of his bed and heading toward his bathroom.

 

Flicking on the bright lights made him wince, squinting as his vision adjusted, but once it did he stepped forward, taking stock of how he looked in the mirror before him. It almost seemed like every hair on his head stuck out at a different angle, messy as it was, and his button-up and pants were crumpled from sleep, creased and wrinkled in all places. His eyes, deep blue, stared back at himself, something almost… almost empty about the gaze, but after a minute of watching himself they drifted downwards and focused on his hands, where each was half-coated in dried, scarlet blood.

 

He examined his hands almost meticulously, turning them over and examining each part of his fingers and thumbs, his palms, digging slightly at the blood crusted under the white of his nails. He did this for a few minutes, before finally lowering them toward the sink, using his elbow to turn the hot water knob, allowing water to gush from the tap and over his hands. The blood seemed to run and run, but it only took a minute or two for Castiel to wash most of it off the tan of his skin, using one leg of a pair of tweezers set nearby to unearth the blood under his nails and let it wash away with the rest of the blood once he’d cleaned his hands.

 

He was nearly finished cleansing the blood from his skin when he distantly heard his phone ring, trilling from his bedroom, and he finished digging out a small clot of blood from under his pinky fingernail before setting the tweezers aside and switching the water off, grabbing a towel and drying his hands off as he shuffled back into his room, grabbing his phone and hitting the answer button while putting the device to his ear, quiet, listening.

 

“Good morning, Castiel,” a woman’s voice greeted. “As I haven't heard anything about your job last night, I'll assume it’s gone well. Your next assignment is waiting for you outside. Good luck.” The phone beeped, and then she was gone, the hum of the bathroom light and the rush of the water the only sounds.

 

Castiel blinked, the abruptness of the call seeming to surprise him a bit, but after a moment he nodded to himself, pulling the phone from his ear and slipping it into his pocket. He folded the towel in his other hand nicely, and set it down on his bedside table, reaching beside it for the long, tapered knife resting on the same table, glinting in the weak sunlight managing through Castiel’s closed window blinds. He grabbed the trench coat hanging off the end of his bed, and slipped the knife into the deep right pocket as he pulled it onto his shoulders, almost lazily brushing out his shirt afterwards, though the movement barely made a dent in straightening the wrinkled fabric. He headed for the door, shutting it almost silently behind himself as he went.

 

A packet of papers waited on the doorstep, as promised, in a simple white envelope with no label or address, unstamped and sealed shut. Castiel eyed them silently as he tugged on his shoes, grabbing them as he stepped out of his small house, heading toward the rundown junker car parked in his driveway. The front door still hung ajar, unlocked and open, as he climbed into the car and backed away from the house, pulling onto the road and driving off.

 

~*~

 

“Rock solid, huh?” Benny hummed, Dean sipping his coffee, thick and trucker-dark. He hadn't slept since the beginning of the Welsh case, so the black mud he chugged down was the only thing keeping him from passing out cold across his partner’s desk.

 

“Yup,” Dean agreed. “During the window we’ve got, midnight to twelve fifteen, she was apparently making a call from her landline to a 24 hour Chinese takeout place. Kinda sad, but the staff corroborated it, so…”

 

“So her alibi checks out,” Benny sighed, sitting back in his chair. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it ain’t her, if only for her kids sakes,” he said, spinning a pen idly between his fingers, “but it would have made it a hell of a lot easier to find who did the deed.” Dean huffed, perching on the edge of his desk.

 

“And according to Jo, the assistant wasn't much help. She was long gone by the time ol’ Geoff got the whack. She hadn't--” Just then, in the middle of the word, Bobby came blustering in, holding a file which he thunked on the desk between the two men.

 

“Have a look,” he said curtly, jerking his chin towards the heap of papers. Benny frowned, picking up the file.

 

“What’s this ‘spose to be?” he asked gruffly, brows raising. Dean reached out and flipped it opened; tucked into the pockets of the folder, opposite one another, were two photographs from two autopsies, almost exactly the same. One bore the label, “Geoffrey Welsh,” the other “Juilette Biondi,” but despite the fact that they were each from a different town, a different state, killed months apart, the images of their wounds were precisely identical.

 

“Well, damn,” Dean sighed. “Repeat offender?”

 

“Looks like,” Benny said curiously, eyeing each picture with careful attention. “How’d ya’ find this one, Boss?” he asked Bobby, holding up the case file for Biondi.

 

“Lilith mentioned it,” Bobby replied, crossing his arms. “While she was doin’ the autopsy. Can't believe none ‘a us saw it, it was all over the news jus’ a couple months back.”

 

Benny frowned. “I kinda remember that now,” he mused, then blinked, brows upping once more on his face. “Is this the only other case file for a situation like this, Bobby?” The old chief shook his head.

 

“Not even close. Had some newbies pull the rest off the Internet or get the investigatin’ precincts to fax ‘em over. They got a hell of a heap over in the conference room.”

 

“How many we talkin’?” Dean asked, paging through the folder.

 

“Come see for yourself,” Bobby replied, jerking his head in the direction of the room down the hall. Benny frowned at Dean, but they both got up, heading down the hall after Bobby. Through the blinds on the interior windows of the conference room, both officers could see stacks and stacks of stapled papers, encompassing the whole board table and even covering the surrounding chairs. Dean whistled lowly.

 

“Jesus,” he said dumbly, opening the room, the smell of freshly printed ink and warm paper filling the somewhat musty air.

 

“Holy shit,” Benny agreed, his eyes huge as he raked them over the stacks of files. “You can’t be serious.”

 

“As a heart attack,” Bobby agreed. “This ain't no copycat, either; Lillith called up the other MEs who worked on these cases, and turns out everything’s the same; the width ‘a the incisions, the way everythin’s designed, how clean it all is-- they’re all matches to what happened to Geoffrey Welsh.”

 

“An’ no one ever figured it out until now?” Benny questioned. “Boss, these’re obvious markings, no one except a serial killer puts so much effort into murders like this. There’s no way no one ever tried to go down this trail lookin’ for who did this.” Bobby nodded.

 

“‘At’s the worst part,” he said. “Everybody from the Feds to local folks to private citizens has been workin’ on this ‘un, and all ‘a that work’s turned up jack.” Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“There's gotta be somethin’ somebody turned up,” he said, half-dismissive. “At least the symbol could tell us a little about the killer, right?”

 

“Maybe,” Benny mused, grabbing a random file and idly flipping through it. “But if he or she’s done all’a this, and no one’s caught’em, even the Feds….”

 

“They gotta be pretty hot shit,” Dean agreed, morose.

 

Benny snorted. “That’s one way of puttin’ it.”

 

He sighed heavily. “If the Feds can’t find’em, there’s almost no way we’re gonna find this guy, Boss. Chances are none to _really_ none.”

 

“Don't get too optimistic, now, boys,” Bobby said. “Guy’s gonna slip up sometime, and we gotta be there when he does.” Dean sighed.

 

“I guess I’ll reverse image the symbol,” he said. “Maybe we’ll put som’m together, som’m new.”

 

“Like what?” Benny asked, one brow going up. “This symbol could mean anythin’, brother. Doesn’t mean that it's important to the reason these people are bein’ murdered.”

 

“Alright, you got a better idea?” Dean said, a little shortly.

 

“Brother, the _Feds_ couldn’t find this guy. What makes you think _we_ can?”

 

“Well, we can't just sit on our asses and wait around,” Dean snapped again. “Welsh deserves a shot at justice; so do all these other victims.” He waved an encompassing hand over all the papers covering the table.

 

Benny sighed heavily. “I know, I know. Fine. Let’s get started, then, or this is gonna take all night.” Dean nodded, relieved.

 

“You take half, I'll take half,” he said, sitting down in a chair just as a secretary thunked another six inch high stack down in front of him. Benny groaned at the sight.

 

“Please tell me that’s the last of’em,” he said to her, though his question was rendered futile when the secretary just shook her head and went back to the printer. Dean huffed.

 

“Permission to order a pizza to the office, sir?” he asked Bobby, already taking out his phone.

 

“Permission granted, boy,” he agreed gruffly. “Provided you two plan to share.”

 

“Yeah, maybe,” Benny muttered, no malice behind his words as he settled in front of a stack of files, grabbing the topmost one and opening it, already looking exhausted of the workload ahead.

 

It was then, however, that Jo appeared in the doorway, looking hurried and wide-eyed as she stopped before Bobby, panting hard, seeming to have run there. “Boss,” she managed through heaving breaths, “Boss, there’s been another one, another murder.” The entire room gave a collective silent groan, their faces falling, some upset, some, like Dean, simply inconvenienced. Once you'd seen as much death and sadness as he had, another murder was just another thing on his “to do” list.

 

“Winchester, LaFitte, forget this,” Bobby said. “Go look into this fresh horseshit, I'll be there soon.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Dean nodded, standing, heading to the door with Benny in tow.

 

“Is it insensitive’a me to say that I’m glad we don’t gotta go through all that paperwork?” Benny mumbled, grabbing his belt and coat from his desk as they passed it. Dean scoffed.

 

“Nah. Although I was lookin’ forward to that pizza.”

 

“Same, brother,” Benny sighed. “But hey. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find som’men at this crime scene instead.”

 

“I'll eat anything as long as it's not actual evidence,” Dean grumbled

 

“Not _food_ , idiot, _just_ evidence.” Dean laughed.

 

“You can stick with that, champ. I gotta eat som’m, I haven't had anything but coffee since lunch yesterday.”

 

“Why not, asshat?” They walked out to the squad car, Dean snatching the keys from the bowl by the door, winning the right to drive.

 

“My dinner burned last night, and I ain't exactly had time to nosh what with all the murders,” Dean grumbled. “The Welsh lady offered me cookies, but I ain't about to take a widow’s snack foods.”

 

Benny snorted. “Good point,” he said. “We’ll hit some fast food place on the way, then. Can’t have your ass passin’ out on me.” Dean punched the air, sliding into the driver’s seat.

 

“Score.”

 

Benny snorted. “Settle down, Burger Boy. Try not to look too happy and greasy when you see the dead body.” Dean rolled his eyes.

 

“Please. I have a little more sense than that,” he dismissed.

 

~*~

 

“So who’s our vic this time?” Dean asked one of the first responders, gesturing to the body with a French fry and getting a teasingly dirty look from Benny, who was doing crowd control nearby where they stood outside of the nearby community’s burger joint.

 

 

“Guy named Barry Reeves,” one of them said as his partner looked over the body before them, knelt down beside it. “One of the teenagers that works here found him out behind the dumpster when they were taking the trash out. Looks like he’s been dead about four hours or so.” Dean clicked his tongue.

 

“Where's the kid?”

 

“Inside,” the man sighed, “hyperventilating into a paper sack.” Dean looked at Benny, who was approaching, the crowd having dispelled.

 

“You'd better take this one,” he called, “I'm maxed out on chatting with civilians.”

 

Benny huffed, rolling his eyes, but he nodded in agreement. “Last thing I need is you scarin’ the kid to death, too,” he said dryly.

 

“Boo,” Dean replied, raising his hands sarcastically. Turning his attention to the task at hand, he stepped closer to the corpse, onto the other side of the crime tape. Reeves was lying on the ground, his shirt cut neatly opened down the front, exposing clean and tidy cuts into his bared chest, with a precise puncture wound right in between his ribs and into his heart. “Shit,” Dean muttered, “we got another.”

 

“He’s got the same marks?” Benny questioned, pausing, eyes tracing over the body. “They’re identical ta’ Welsh’s?” Dean nodded, sighing.

 

“And to Jones’, and to Martinez’s, and to Shuptrine’s…”

 

“He looks kinda like Welsh did,” Benny said abruptly, squinting down at the body, getting a little closer. “Doesn’t he? The hair and the body type and all, he and Welsh could’a been brothers.” Benny snorted. “Not to mention they’ve now got matching murder wounds. Fashion trend of the year.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Dean agreed, “sweeping the goddamn nation, ain't it?”

 

“Unfortunately,” Benny groaned. “I’ll go talk to the kid. You see what you can find here.”

 

“Will do,” Dean agreed, turning his attention back to the body.

 

“Just lemme know,” Benny said, nodding and heading toward the restaurant’s back door, slipping inside with a grace that was curiously sound for his bulky form. Dean nodded, then turned back to scan the area. A cluster of forensic scientists covered the body like hungry flies, catching blood droplets on sterile glass plates, hunting for locks of stray hair, thoroughly investigating any and all traces of the life that had long since fled the victim. Their swarm intensified, and then all around Dean was a flurry of activity, hazmat-suited investigators running and shouting excitedly, one bringing a tiny plastic bag--an evidence bag, into which one of the scientists tucked a blood-sticky, dark hair.

 

“Benny!” Dean shouted eagerly, pushing through the mess of people, careful not to disturb the woman transporting the prized bag. “Benny, we got a break!”

 

~*~

 

Upon returning home that afternoon, Castiel’s front door was further open than it had been when he’d left that morning, and he sighed heavily upon entering his home, eyes scanning almost lazily over the areas where his grandfather clock, television, and armchair had once been. It was most likely that these items were now in the hands of the group of rowdy teenagers that lived together just down the road, and who’d ridden his home of his own furniture nearly ten times in the past month alone, taking to him like he were a sow and they were homeless, starving, usually drunken piglets, taking as much from him as they could in the short times Castiel actually vacated his home, and without much remorse for it. Normally events such as these weren’t a big deal, as such, or much of a deal at all to Castiel, seeing as they happened so frequently, even for a neighborhood that outwardly appeared as kindly and safe as possible; it wasn’t as though Castiel didn’t have money, couldn’t replace any meager, material possession bestowed by himself onto himself for his own home. He rarely took much interest in anything he actually decided to buy, to be honest.

 

But _really_ now-- he’d actually, truly liked that grandfather clock.

 

Making a careful mental note to pay the boys a small visit on a spare day in the near future or so, Castiel made his way inside, nudging his door closed this time with a small kick of his foot, lingering in the hallway a moment or two before slipping into his kitchen, depositing his few grocery bags on the marble island set in the center of the room. He worked in silence, putting everything away with a sort of mechanical sway to the way he moved, his brain fairly far off from what he was actually doing, as if he had simply turned his mind off and was just allowing his limbs to work on a long-trained autopilot.

 

He didn’t even notice that the blood on his button-down was still wet until he reached across himself to grab the large bottle of applesauce on the island to the left of him, and he blinked, looking down at where the red was now smeared on the white skin of his forearm. He seemed to take a long moment to really recognize what he’d done, to really take in the bright red blood staining the smooth skin of his underarm, and it was only as he moved toward the kitchen sink, reaching out to turn the knob for the hot water to wash away the sin streaking his skin, that once again his phone trilled loudly, almost shrilly ringing from his back pocket.

 

Castiel paused, hand still outstretched for the knob, allowing three rings to go by while he seemed to internally debate what he wanted to do in the situation, but finally, as the fourth ring rolled through the air around him, he finally retracted his hand from the sink, letting his arm remain smeared with foreign blood as he grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and answered the insistent call, not bothering to speak as the female voice from before spoke to him across the line.

 

“Very nice job today, Castiel,” the low, feminine voice purred to him through the receiver, content with Castiel’s silence, it appeared, as she continued to speak. “You’ve been wonderfully successful these past few days, but we still have much to do. Much, much more to do.”

 

She made a little coughing noise, seeming to clear her throat, as if to give very important news next. “Rest for the next few hours, Castiel,” she said. “Your next target’s information will be dropped off this afternoon, and I want it studied very carefully, because you need to be alert this time. I’ve received word that the police are trying to track you down, and we don’t need them finding you, do we?” she asked. “Not that I really believe they would; you’re really just too sly for them, pet.”

 

Castiel straightened up slightly at the news, like a dog pricking its ears up to a peculiar sound, but the woman still just continued, leaving no room for Castiel to attempt speaking, even if he’d tried at all. “Just make sure you’re ready, Castiel. You need to be swift, agile, quick; there’s no room for failure.” She allowed just a bare pause. “Don’t fail me, Castiel.”

 

She hung up swiftly, with that, a click signalling the end of her call, and Castiel blinked before lowering the phone from his ear, allowing it to hang at his side. After a moment he simply turned away from the sink, tucking his cell phone away in his back pocket as he moved back to his groceries. The blood his arm had swept against still showed dark on his skin as he grabbed the applesauce he’d previously been focused on, tucking it away in the cabinet with nothing of a second glance to the dry sink he now ignored, redemption beyond his once again mindless attention.

 

~*~

 

“I almost can’t believe it,” Bobby grunted as he sat behind his desk, brows raised as Dean and Benny, standing before him. “This guy’s never left one trace on anyone else, not a fingerprint or a thread, and then they find a lock’a hair from him on the victim? That dudn’t seem right.” Dean shrugged.

 

“Maybe he's ready to hang up his knife,” he suggested, flipping through crime scene photos. “I bet mass murdering takes a lot outta a guy.”

 

Bobby snorted. “Even if he’s hangin’ up the knife,” he drawled dryly, “why would he leave evidence to convict himself? I don’t think he’d wanna hang up his knife just to get thrown on’ta death row.”

 

“Maybe it was an accident,” Benny suggested. “He’s good, great even, but everybody slips up sometimes, right?”

 

“Either way,” Dean agreed, “I ain't lookin’ this gift horse in the mouth. When’re those labs gettin’ back?”

 

“Not for another couple’a hours,” Bobby said, sitting back and crossing his arms. “Which means you two have time to go help the others read through those case files.”

 

“Oh, good,” Dean sighed. “I was hopin’ I’d have time for that.”

 

“We need more connections to track this guy down,” Bobby insisted. “I wanna know every scrap of detail that seems to match even just a smidge to other cases. You hear me?” Dean huffed.

 

“Seems kinda pointless, don't'cha think?” he asked. “At least we oughta wait till the labs get back, you know? I mean, there's millions ‘a brunets runnin’ around out there, but with the labs, it'll let us narrow it down.”

 

“There’ve been two murders in two days,” Bobby persisted. “I want dates and places from those other files, boy. It can give us an idea of the pattern he kills in.” He raised his brows. “Unless you think you’re above grunt work?” he asked testily.

 

“No, sir,” Dean deferred, trudging off to the godforsaken conference room where all the files still coated the table. He sat down in one of the abused swivel chairs, twisting and oscillating idly as he grabbed a file at random. Natalie Northman, murdered back in 1994, in Jackson, Tennessee. Nothing more than some crime scene photos and the account of the people who discovered her, a family of tourists just passing through on their way to Miami.

 

Benny groaned as he took his own seat, grabbing a file for himself. “I need coffee,” he complained. “Lots and lots and lots of coffee….”

 

“I'll get it,” Dean said eagerly, any escape from his file-filled prison a welcome one. “One cream, two sugars, right?”

 

“Double it all, please,” Benny muttered, grabbing a file for himself.

 

“Comin’ up, champ.”

 

“Thanks,” Benny muttered. “An’ bring me my dinner from the fridge too, if ya’ would.”

 

“Can I have some?” Dean called from the hallway.

 

“You had three burgers on the way to the crime scene!” Benny huffed. “You better hurry your ass up if you want some of mine, then!”

 

“You got it!” Dean grinned, grabbing the dinner and going so far as to heat it up while he poured his coffee. He returned with his shortly, smiling.

 

“Took ya’ long enough,” Benny complained half-heartedly, eyes unmoving from the file before him.

 

“Shut up,” Dean dismissed, sliding his dinner across the table to him. “Heated up and everything.”

 

“Mm, thanks,” Benny muttered. “You can have the fried pickles, I don’t feel like eatin’em.” Dean already had one in his mouth.

 

“Thanks,” he smiled. “And give my compliments to Andrea.” The statement was somewhat undignified with his mouth half-full, but the sentiment was intact.

 

Benny rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that--” he made a series of garbled, unintelligible noises to mock Dean’s food-stuffed mouth, “-- will be a great compliment.”

 

“Hey, it’s the thought that counts,” Dean replied, more clearly now.

 

“Mhm,” Benny hummed dryly in response. “C’mon then, get to helpin’ me here.” Dean nodded, grabbing a new file.

 

“So, what are we looking for, ‘sactly?”

 

“Boss said to check out dates and places,” Benny said. “It could give us a pattern on how this guy picks a place and how long he stays in that place when he’s killin’.” Dean nodded.

 

“Oughta make ourselves a timeline, then, huh?” he suggested. “What date’s the one you got there?”

 

“October’a last year. Happened in Seattle.” Dean nodded.

 

“This ‘n’s from June ‘98,”’ he said, setting the file down on the far end of the table and Benny’s on the other end. “So once we get ‘em in order, we can look for patterns. Might make ‘em a little more manageable.”

 

Benny nodded in agreement. “Grab a notepad, then, would’ya? Let’s get started on this stuff. We still gotta wait a couple hours until the DNA on the hair comes back, we need ta’ make the most of it.” Dean did as he was asked, writing file names as he set the files in order of dates. Benny went through files as well, listing off the names of cities or towns and naming off the year that each murder was committed, adding measurably to the list and timeline Dean was building. Within the hour, the table was covered with files, all in chronological order, the huge timeline spreading onto the floor, leaving little pathways in between the carpet of manila folders.

 

“This is… _ridiculous,”_ Benny finally muttered, throwing down another file onto the ‘2001’ section of the pile. “This guy’s kills nearly twenty people a year, and he’s _never_ been caught, or tracked down. Not once. It’s insane.” Dean shook his head.

 

“It’s weird that he slipped up like this, you know? He’s been at this for what, fifteen years, and he’s never made a mistake, and then all of a sudden he leaves DNA at the scene. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t lookin’ the gift horse in the mouth, or anything. Just seems kinda odd.”

 

“That’s the point Boss was tryin’ to make,” Benny muttered. “Can it really be a coincidence? This could be a way to get us off his trail, or maybe even to get us where he can attack the precinct instead.” Dean shook his head.

 

“The precinct doesn’t match his patterns,” Dean replied. “All of these are single murders. Nobody else is ever even around; the only witnesses we ever have are people who found the body. And I don’t reckon he’d risk his whole shtick just to off a couple cops.”

 

“Except that he’s never been traced before,” Benny insisted. “So if this _was_ an accident, and he figures out that we’re onta’ him, he might break his streak and come after us to keep his killin’ goin’.” Dean waved a hand, recording the final file on the notepad.

 

“We’ll be fine. As long as the lab is quick with those results, we can nab him before he gets us.”

 

“We don’t know that, brother. He could be comin’ after us already.”

 

“Then wha’d you want us to do, Benny? Hide? Stop investigatin’ ‘n ignore the whole thing?” He raised his hands. “Part ‘a this job is puttin’ ourselves at risk, and don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea ‘a bein’ in danger, but it comes with the territory ‘a bein’ a cop. We can't just drop the ball ‘cause we’re scared, not when we’re so close.”

 

“That ain’t what I’m sayin’,” Benny said. “I know the damn risks. But if he kills us, brother, we takes some’a the leads with us. No one’s found this guy before, and if he kills us and cleans up his mess, then maybe no one ever will.” Dean sighed.

 

“We gotta cover our bases, then,” he said resolutely. “We gotta take pictures, document what we done so far, make sure we got all our shit backed up ten times over. We can't lose this lead.”

 

Benny nodded. “Agreed,” he said. “I’ll get my phone from my desk, jus’ keep workin’.” Dean nodded, getting down to the gritty work of going case by case and investigating victims and locations and times. Benny, meanwhile, ducked out of the room, leaving Dean alone for just a moment before Jo poked her head in, eyebrows raising.

 

“Hey,” she said, stepping into the room, doughnut in hand. “How’s it going?” Dean made a low groan, just shy from an honest to god moo.

 

“If I ever see another Manila folder again after this, it'll be too fuckin’ soon.”

 

She snorted. “I bet,” she hummed. “Anything coming out of it? Any leads?” Dean shrugged.

 

“It's been slow goin’. So far, we got nothin’, which is kinda a lead on its own, ya know?”

 

She scoffed. “If you say so,” she said. “It’s just a totally _useless_ lead.” Dean shrugged.

 

“The fact that there’s no pattern at least tells us somethin’, right? I mean, it rules out shit like ritual killings, and the vics don't seem to be a certain type--some’re men, some’re women, some single, some married, some’re white, some black--there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason there, either. Which probably just means it's some wacko runnin’ around with a kitchen knife, huh?”

 

Jo frowned. “I think that’s a huge understatement, actually,” she said. “Because even _you_ can catch a wacko with a knife, but no one’s ever even gotten a lead on this guy until now.”

 

“Ouch, Officer Harvelle,” Dean laughed. “If you're such hot shit, c’mere and help us dig around, huh?”

 

She grinned widely. “No can do,” she said. “Mom got me outta’ grunt work with Bobby for a reason, and that reason is that it’s boring on an _unholy_ level.”

 

“That ain't fair,” Dean grumbled. “But ya know, that grunt work comes back around when you get to be a senior investigator like yours truly.”

 

She smirked. “Whatever you say,” she drawled, as Dean saw Benny returning down the long hall, phone in hand. “All I know is that I’m out on other cases while you two are still jammed in the mud on this guy. Plus, I get doughnuts.”

 

“Yeah, but when Benny and I crack this baby, we’re gonna be famous. So you can keep your doughnuts ‘n your small-time cases; I'm happy here,” he grinned, opening his arms. “In my Manila maze.”

 

“We ain’t callin’ it that,” Benny said dryly as he returned, not even taking his eyes off his phone as he pulled the camera app on it up. “Not in a million years.”

 

“Alright, then,” Dean replied. “What’d’you suggest? File fortress, maybe? Case castle?”

 

“Shuddup, idiot,” Benny said, rolling his eyes as he snapped a few pictures of the evidence they had laid out, careful to get everything in them that he needed. “I heard som’men about doughnuts, and there had better be some in reach, because I’m starved.”

 

“Paper pushers don't get doughnuts,” Jo replied teasingly. Both men rolled their eyes.

 

“An’ smartasses don’t get ride-alongs on the big cases,” Benny said flatly, eyeing Jo pointedly. “In fact, they get parkin’ meter duty.” Dean smirked, walking over and snatching her chocolate-frosted sprinkle-covered doughnut from her hand.

 

“Guesh he told you,” he grinned, mouth full of doughnut, chocolate and sprinkle in the corner of his mouth. Benny, in return snatched the rest of the doughnut from Dean, giving him a terse look as he took the rest for himself, chewing on it as he went back to snapping photos of the work around them. Dean stayed out of the way, investigating the files where Benny was not, the two circling the room in opposite directions like orbiting planets.

 

Jo huffed, watching them with her arms crossed. “If you want help, just ask,” she said seriously.

 

“You're gonna regret that,” Dean chuckled, waving her closer.”

 

She shrugged. “Maybe,” she hummed. “But I’ll remember that you owe me a favor in exchange.” Dean held up a hand to stop her.

 

“Wait,” he said, “what kinda favour are we talkin’, here?”

 

She waved her hand nonchalantly. “I’ll figure something out,” she hummed. Dean huffed.

 

“Oh, good.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get on with this,” she said impatiently. “Bobby said it wouldn’t be much longer before the DNA sample got back.”

 

“Awesome,” Dean agreed. “We are so close on this, man. This guy’s slippin’ up.”

 

“Unless he’s doin’ it on purpose,” Benny reminded dryly, snapping another photo of their work.

 

“Don't kill my buzz,” Dean dismissed, waving a hand.

 

Benny rolled his eyes. “You two just get back to work, huh? We still got at least a half-hour’s work here.” Jo nodded, grabbing a file and flipping it open, looking scrupulously for patterns or similarities of any stripe. Benny just gave Dean a look that said to follow in Jo’s lead, before turning back to his photography. He yielded, examining crime scene photo after crime scene photo, comparing them to one another, investigating everything he knew how.

 

The work actually ended up taking another hour to finish, but by the time they began to draw to a close, a man poked his head through the door, a chunk of files clutched in his hands. “Excuse me,” he said, “I’m looking for officers LaFitte and Winchester?”

 

“Who’s askin’?” Dean said, eyebrows knitting in concern, on high alert what with the killer they were after.

 

The man held the files up. “I have some DNA results for them.” Dean almost lunged for them.

 

“That’ll be us. Thanks!” he grinned, cracking open the file, eager to find his lead.

 

“Sure,” the man said, nodding and leaving as Benny and Jo drew close to Dean, brows raised in curiosity.

 

“Looks like our guy isn’t in the system,” Dean hummed. “But we got s’more information on his appearance for an APB, and it looks like his mom’s been convicted for murder. She got the chair in ‘99, but we can look into some next of kin stuff….”

 

Benny raised his brows. “So she’s responsible for the stuff before ‘97,” he said. “There’s a jump in the killin’s, remember? For eleven or twelve years after she got caught and booked.”

 

“You think it’s a family business type thing?” Dean asked. “Handin’ down the mantle of murder?”

 

“Might make sense,” Benny muttered, “except that her files don’t say anything about having any kids. Any living kids, anyway.”

 

“What do you mean?” Jo asked, frowning.

 

“The mom, Tessa,” Benny said, “it says here she had like twelve kids back before she got caught, but apparently they all went mysteriously missin’ about a year before she got booked. They’re labelled as legally missing and dead, have been all this time.” Dean considered this carefully, nodding.

 

“I mean, it just says they’re considered _legally_ missing and dead,” Dean reminded. “Maybe this one’s been out and about all this time, learning how to do what his mom was doin’ an

right under all of our noses. Who’d suspect a dead guy, right? Hell, maybe all of those kids are still alive, and their mom just all them nice and hidden all this time when she knew her number was up back in ‘97. It’s a good cover, I gotta say.”

 

“That’d definitely keep him or any of the others from being suspects,” Jo said, and Benny nodded his approving agreement, raising his brows at Dean. Dean bobbed his head a little, weighing his options for the next step to take.

 

“I’ll get with research,” Dean said finally. “We’ll see if they can dig anything up on the kid. Maybe he hasn’t been _completely_ invisible up until now, you know? Meantime, why don’t y’all get an APB done up with the composite the lab sent us?” He flipped through the file to the suspect’s hypothetical picture. “Damn. He ain’t bad.”

 

Jo scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Seriously? He could be a mass murderer, from a family of mass murderers, who’s been legally dead to the entire world for almost two decades, and you like his profile shots?” Dean held them up, and Benny raised his own eyebrows.

 

“Well, well,” Benny clucked his tongue, rolling his eyes when Jo gave him a look that said _Seriously?_ “Dean ain’t _wrong,_ small fry. Guy’s nice-lookin’. Honestly, that could be a factor inta’ why he wasn’t questioned. It’s biased, but it happens a lot. How many handsome serial killers have you ever actually seen?”

 

“Hey, that’s a big part of their shtick,” Dean agreed. “You know. ‘Hey, innocent little lady, come help me put this couch in my van, slash look for my puppy, slash do some shit in my sketchy basement.’”

 

“Works far too often,” Benny sighed. “But hey, you know? The DNA stuff worked. We got som’men to go off of.” Dean nodded.

 

“More than any other department can say,” he agreed, triumphantly proud.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Benny said. “Just get to findin’ out about this guy, alright Hot Stuff? Get yer’ jitters out, and keep me posted on what you find as you find it. We’ll finish up here.” He motioned to himself and Jo, as Jo’s face twisted into shock.

 

“What?” Jo exclaimed at Benny’s tired form. “I want to go too!” she insisted fiercely.

 

“No can do,” Benny said flatly. “You’re still an intern, Harville, so you still do intern stuff, like clean-up work.”

 

“Yeah,” Dean added, teasing. “Maybe when you make senior investigator, you can play with the big kids.” He held up the file, turning to leave. “I'll keep you posted, Big Guy.”

 

“You better,” Benny returned, motioning Jo toward the work, her face twisted in an angry scowl. Dean ducked down the hall towards the research desks, raising the file triumphantly.

 

“Al-right!” he said, setting it down on the research desk. Ed and Harry looked up, Ed straightening his glasses, Harry stopping his frantic typing and talking for just a moment. “We’re gonna need some info on a Tessa Novak. She got the chair back in ‘99, multiple murder. We’re looking for her kid, brunette guy, should be around twenty-four or so now.” Harry frowned.

 

“Is this about that serial killer thing?” he questioned curiously. “What do you have?”

 

“DNA and a couple composite sketches,” Dean replied. “We found a hair at the scene. Now, c’mon, get to Googlin’. Time’s a wastin’.” Ed huffed, glaring at Dean in return.

 

“We’re not _lackies_ , dick-face,” he said haughtily. “You can’t tell us what to do.”

 

“That’s a new one,” Dean laughed, sarcastic. “Dick-face, that’s funny. Now come on, the longer we wait, the further we get from catching our guy. We need a name.”

 

“Guess you better start looking for it, then,” Ed returned flatly, eyes narrowed.

 

“Hey,” Dean chided. “We don’t pay you two to look pretty.”

 

“You barely pay us at all,” Harry replied, despite the fact that he was dutifully plinking away at his laptop as he griped.

 

“Harry!” Ed snapped, noticing him. “Don’t give the assface what he wants! He’s just gonna use us and take all the credit!” He shook his head. “Fingers away from the controls, Mr. Sulu.”

 

“Who made you Kirk?” Harry replied irritably. “You’re a Bones, all the way.”

 

“It’s just a metaphor!” Ed snapped. “You know what I mean!” Harry huffed and raised his hands defensively, despite the glare Dean was leveling at him.

 

“What are your demands?” Dean asked, grudgingly.

 

“A please would be nice,” Ed said firmly, crossing his arms. “And maybe a couple of pineapple milkshakes.”

 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed firmly. “And some’a that whipped foam on top of them.”

 

“That's nasty,” Dean grumbled. “I'll send Jo for ‘em.” Ed nodded.

 

“Good,” he said. “One demand met, but…” he trailed off, eyeing Dean pointedly.

 

“Please,” Dean sighed finally, arms crossed resolutely. “Please do this research that could save the lives of hundreds. There, happy?”

 

“A little,” Ed grumbled, but finally went back to typing at his computer. “Who is it I’m looking for, again?”

 

“You are looking for Tessa Novak’s son. She got the chair, he should be around 20. I'll bring you some photocopies of these files later.” Ed hummed.

 

“Fine. Anything else?” Dean shook his head.

 

“That should be all. Thanks.” Harry and Ed grunted together in acknowledgement, both going to work. A snort sounded from behind Dean, just as Ellen Harville popped up beside Dean at the head of Ed’s desk, brows raising at Dean. “Not pushing around the techies here again, are we Winchester?” she drawled expectantly.

 

“No ma’am,” Dean replied, giving her his most charming, “Don’t mind me” smile, at the same time that Ed and Harry monotonously insisted _“yes.”_ Ellen hummed, eyeing Dean pointedly before turning to Ed, handing a thick folder of files over to him, which he took without question, or even looking up from his computer screen.

 

“If you could get to these when you’re done with Winchester’s stuff?” Ellen asked.

 

“‘Course, ma’am,” Ed said easily, setting them aside as he continued typing with one hand, eyes still locked onto his computer screen. Ellen smiled, as Dean made an irritated scoffing noise, eyes narrowed.

 

“Dude!” he snapped. “You made me go through all that bull, and she just gets help like _that?”_ he snapped with the word in enunciation.

 

“Duh,” Ed said flatly, matter-of-factly, as Ellen smirked, the triumph coming easily to her older yet intimidating features.

 

“She didn't have to buy you any shitty milkshake,” Dean pouted, heading back to Benny. “That ain't fair.” Ed scoffed, glaring at his own screen still.

 

“First off,” he said, almost harshly, “pineapple milkshakes are _not_ shitty, asshat.”

 

“What he said,” Harry commented in the background.

 

“Furthermore,” Ed continued without pause, “she’s not a dipshit like _you_ , dipshit.” Dean rolled his eyes, pushing open the door to what he would _not_ stop calling the File Fortress.

 

“You two code monkeys are just jealous of the badge,” he called from the doorway, swinging it closed behind himself, once again surrounded by files.

 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Ed called after him anyway, voice muffled as it travelled through the closed door. Benny raised his brows at Dean from the table, where he and Jo were still straightening up from he and Dean’s long sorting process.

 

“What was that about?” Benny questioned, getting his answer when Dean shoved a few bucks at Jo.

 

“Listen,” he hissed, harmless, “you go get those two asswipes pineapple milkshakes from Cookout. It's the only way we’re gonna get the Peanut Gallery to do their damn jobs, evidently.” Jo scoffed.

 

“I'm not your go-fer, champ,” she replied. “Get those milkshakes yourself, you're a big boy.” Dean groaned, like a whiny teenager, but did turn, striding down the hall with a “Fine”, back out to the main lobby, heading grumpily for his cruiser.

 

“Getting our ‘shitty’ milkshakes, buttface?” Ed called smartly as Dean passed, the officer trying to bite his tongue...and ultimately, failing.

 

“Fuck off, smartass.”

 

Ed huffed, rolling his eyes, just as Harry called out, “Wait a sec! I got something first!”

 

Dean paused, backing casually up as Ed hissed angrily at his colleague, though he was, for the moment, promptly ignored as Harry slid back from his computer, his wheeled chair rolling him over to the working printer.

 

“What is it?” Dean asked, trying to feign coolness as Harry snatched up the paper he’d printed from the machine, quickly rolling back over.

 

“Dude!” Ed berated Harry impatiently. “Not until we get our pineapple shakes!”

 

“He’s going out anyway,” Harry snapped back, shoving the paper at Dean. “Here, just take this. It’s the last known address for Tessa Novak. It’s right here in Lawrence, just across town.” Dean nodded.

 

“Yeah, alright. Now I remember why we keep you two around,” he smirked, heading off in earnest this time.

 

“Next time you better be willing to pay up big time!” Ed shouted irritably after him. “And don’t forget our freakin’ shakes!”

 

~*~

 

The morning was almost uncomfortably hot when Castiel stepped into Biggerson Incorporated’s Warehouse Number 2704, though the watch snapped around his wrist only read nine o’clock, and Castiel paused a moment to take in the even warmer environment of the warehouse around him before he sighed, slowly, and shrugged his thick coat off of his shoulders, letting it drop from his hands into a heavy pile on the dusty floor below his feet. He bent enough to set down the briefcase in his hand as well before straightening up, free hand now moving instinctively to loosen his crooked tie as he thought of where to start.

 

After a few moments of silence, he moved forward at a casual pace down one of the warehouse’s long walkways, idly rolling his sleeves up to his elbows as his eyes scanned over the rows and rows of boxes filling the area around him, all stacked in tall piles that extended near to the high ceilings. He seemed thoughtful as he shoved his hands into his pockets, letting them rest there, shoulders relaxed, as he scoped the majority of the warehouse out. The place was spacious, but not very big, considering its placement in a smaller area of town, used mainly for storing excess shipments of fake meat, molding cheese, and buns that appeared to the eye to possibly be half-made from some form of plastic or another. It would have to do, however, wouldn’t it? It was the only way to go from here, really.

 

He spent another few minutes of his time examining every nook and cranny that he could find in the building before finally returning to his things, ignoring his crumpled coat on the floor as he grabbed his briefcase, swinging it up on top of a nearby box and unlocking the two brass latches, pushing the top wide open. He pulled out the files that had been dropped in his mail just a few hours previous, thumbing through them for only a moment before setting them aside, grabbing from the inside, instead, a small Blackberry from where it had been hidden underneath the papers.

 

He examined the small thing almost flippantly as he paced away from his things again, phone clutched in his fist, leaving the files and briefcase where they were, for the time being. The topmost paper in the file had nothing on it other than a large picture of a ginger-haired man in a well-tailored suit, and, underneath it, a ten-digit number scrawled in impeccably perfect handwriting: a phone number, one that Castiel was currently punching into the cell phone clenched delicately in his fingers while his files and briefcase awaited his return from their stationary spots.

 

After hitting the number into the phone, Castiel hit just four more buttons into the text box he’d created, the buttons writing out the number ‘2704’, before pushing down on the send button. Once the message was gone, Castiel paused momentarily, letting his arm hang by his side, phone still in his looser grasp. He walked just a little ways forward, back into the maze of cardboard and rotting fast food ingredients, patiently waiting. It took only a moment or two before the phone buzzed again, and he pulled it back up into his line of sight, opening the new message that now awaited him on it.

 

_ETA 20 minutes._

 

Castiel nodded to himself, eyes scanning over the message another time or two before he snapped the phone shut, slipping it away into his pocket, clearing his fingers so he could reach for his blade instead.

 

~*~

 

“Novak?” The old woman eyed the picture Dean held out to her, a frown on her crotchety, wrinkle-creased face. “Well, damn, Haven’t heard that name in almost twenty years, now.”

 

“Is that right?” Dean asked around the hard candy she had forced on him when he arrived just a few minutes before. “Which Novak did you know?” She snorted in response.

 

“That’s a broad question,” she said, leaning back against her kitchen’s doorframe, crossing her arms. “That woman had a million fuckin’ kids, I swear to God.”

 

“Really?” Dean asked. “You remember any names? Boys, specifically?” She raised her brows.

 

“Not really,” she said flatly. “They weren’t my kids, and most of ‘em I barely even saw. I couldn’t’a kept up with all’a them if I’d tried. I just know that every time I saw’er, she had a different one.” She paused a moment, then, however, before starting again.

 

“Except… well. I guess there was one I saw more’n twice or so.”

 

“You remember a name? Anything about his behaviour, maybe--if he was a troublemaker, someone who might get on the wrong side of the law?” Dean asked, fixating on this new lead. She snorted a little, shaking her head.

 

“Wouldn’t say he was a trouble-maker, now,” she said, moving forward, taking a slow seat in a chair across from Dean, leaning back in it. “But he was definitely an odd one. Som’men wasn’t totally right with that boy, that was for sure.” Dean almost scrambled to sit across from her before reigning it in.

 

“How exactly do you mean, Mrs. Reshnikov?” She shrugged sharply.

 

“Couldn’t say. He just didn’t seem totally right in the head’s all.” Dean nodded, making a note.

 

“Do you have any recollection of his name, or the name ‘any other kid? Maybe you overheard his mother say it, som’m like that? Even a few letters would help us.” She sighed heavily.

 

“Dunno. It was some weird-ass name, somethin’ outta a fantasy novel or whatnot. All’a her kids had names like that. Told you, I couldn’t’a kept them all straight to have saved my life.” Dean nodded.

 

“Fair enough, ma’am. Do you remember anything about the mother? How she behaved, why she left the area?” He pulled out a page from the file he still had with him. “Says here, Tessa put her house on the market in 1995 and moved outta the neighbourhood… you couldn’t tell me why, could you?” Mrs. Reshnikov clucked her tongue.

 

“Well, yeah,” she said. “‘Cause her crazy-ass got run outta town’s why.”

 

“Run outta town?” Dean repeated, incredulous (partially earnestly, partially for show). “What for?” The woman almost seemed to hesitate, and Dean half expected her to look around for someone listening in as she leaned forward, voice dropping.

 

“Wasn’t much business’a mine,” she muttered lowly, though she talked with an air as though she’d been in on it all. “But all’a those kids’a hers started disappearin’, just a few years after she moved her with’em all.” Dean furrowed his brows.

 

“You figure Tessa had som’m to do with it?” he ascertained, making another note on his little black pad.

 

“Well, yeah, they were her kids, weren’t they?” she said, before sighing again and sitting back once more. “We all figured that her ex-husband was gettin’ rights on ‘em, takin’em back from her and bringin’em back to wherever he lived, but… well.”

 

“So she and her ex fought a lot? Lotsa late nights yellin’ at each other, huh?”

 

“Well, that was the thing, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Reshnikov said, as though Dean knew, brows rising high up on her wrinkled forehead. “She never came here with’er ex-husband; just all those kids. Nobody ever saw’im, or heard of ‘im. We occasionally saw a car that wasn’t hers out in her driveway, but other than that, no one around here had ever even caught a glimpse of this ex-husband of hers.” She steepled her fingers together. “The only parent those kids had that we ever saw was their mom. But there were so many of’em, y’know… they had to have a father somewhere. And they looked alike, so it wasn’t like she was runnin’ around throwin’ herself at every man that crossed ‘er.” She shook her head.

 

“That woman wasn’t like that at all, anyway. Too quiet, too uptight, no way she was some kinda’ prostitute or somethin’. Nah. She didn’t have all those kids with more than one man.” She sighed. “Anyways, all those kids started disappearin’, and so we had to reason that her ex-husband had managed to get his hands on’em. She could’a been abusive or somethin’ for all we knew, maybe he was gettin’em away from her to save’em. I told you at least the one boy really wasn’t alright in the head, an’ maybe that was her fault. But anyhow, it’s a small town, and she was already an outcast, y’know? The town ghost and whatnot. The rumors were bound to crop up, and boy did they.”

 

“Is that right?” Dean hummed, leaning in and turning the charm up. “So exactly what was the rumor mill circulatin’?” The woman scowled.

 

“It seemed ridiculous at the time, of course,” she said slowly, considering. “It was somethin’ the kids around here started up after the first three’a her kids went missing during the summer. Two girls and one’a the boys. Ms. Novak was an odd one, really odd, after all, and the kids already had other rumors going about her. We just thought this was another one; kids’ll be kids and all.”

 

“I understand,” Dean nodded. “Just what were these rumours?” Mrs. Reshnikov pursed her lips.

 

“Nothin’ ever really happened here in town, you know?” she said. “This part’s small, never had a lot of people or stuff goin’ on. We’ve never had more’n nine-hundred people livin’ out here at a time. We didn’t have any idea what Ms. Novak… _was_... not at the time. She didn’t get found out for killin’ until much later, y’know. Long after she was gone.” Dean nodded.

 

“Sounds like folks around these parts were a little ahead ‘a their time,” he agreed. “Now, far as the kids-- general consensus was what, exactly?”

 

She shrugged. “They… they all started tellin’ people that she was killin’ her own kids,” she said quietly. “Buryin’ them in her backyard. And that they’d seen the bodies’a the kids that weren’t around anymore, seen’er disposin’of’em.” Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“Now, was this a pretty popular opinion, or was it just a few people sayin’ this stuff?” he asked, already writing himself reminders to have the back yard of Tessa’s home excavated.

 

“It was the kids startin’ the rumors,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Of course nobody believed’em.” She paused. “Not at first, I mean. We all just figured it was kids bein’ kids, makin’ a mountain outta’ a mole hill to scare each other and all that, make up some ghost stories for our town so that it didn’t seem so bleak to’em all the time… but after another five’a her kids went missin’ during the winter, and us seein’ nobody comin’ in and out of town to take’em….” She shifted uncomfortably. “It all started to feel like less than rumor.” Dean nodded.

 

“So this kid you saw with her a couple times… was he one of the ones they said vanished?”

 

“On the contrary,” Mrs. Reshnikov answered. “By the time people ran Mrs. Novak outta town, the next summer or so, he was the only one’a those kids left, and she took’em with her. By that time, everyone around here was convinced she was a killer. Guess later she just proved us all right.” She shrugged. “I gotta guess whatever happened to those other kids happened to the last boy, y’know? If she really did kill’em all, then maybe he was just the last of’em. She took her wherever she went and just did away with him too. None of us have ever seen her kind ‘round here again since then."

 

Dean nodded, thoughtfully jotting down a few more notes before looking up at the woman again, smiling easily. “Thanks for your help, ma’am; here, take this card, and if anything else comes to mind, anything at all, you give me or my office a call,” he said, passing a small business card over to Reshnikov as he closed his small memo pad with a mere flick of his wrist. “Alright?”

 

Mrs. Reshnikov frowned at the card as she took it, looking up at Dean again after a short moment with her brows raised once again. “What did you say this was about again, Officer?” she asked carefully. “That Novak woman got the chair _years_ ago, and she got run outta’ this town _way_ before they caught her crazy ass. Why’re you comin’ around here askin’ ‘bout her?”

 

Dean shook his head. “It's nothing to worry about, ma’am,” he dismissed.

 

“I don’t think I believe you,” Mrs. Reshnikov said slowly, a grimace still on her aged features. Dean didn’t reply to that, standing, and after a moment the woman sighed and did the same, tucking Dean’s card away into her pocket as she walked him to the door.

 

“What’s left’a the Novaks’ house is all the way down this road and on the left,” Mrs. Reshnikov said, the words making Dean’s heart take a little pause of disappointment.

 

“What’s _left?”_ he asked carefully, however, to be sure, hoping against hope that he was wrong. She nodded, however, speaking as Dean’s heart sank a little.

 

“Ms. Novak put her house on the market when she took’er son and ran, but cause’a the rumors and all, nobody would take the house,” Mrs. Reshnikov said, shrugging her shoulders. “Eventually people stopped comin’, and then Ms. Novak got caught and killed, so folks around here finally destroyed the place. Mostly the kids, y’know, but lots of the older people, too.” She shook her head. “Nobody wanted that house to be there, remindin’ us’a the kind’a person we were linked to. It was somethin’ of a cleansing to be rid’a the place.”

 

“Right,” Dean said carefully, mind whirring. “I… don’t ‘spose they did any excavating?”

 

“‘Course,” Mrs. Reshnikov replied, and Dean’s heart felt heavy with disappointment, crossing _excavation_ off in his brain as the woman continued speaking to him. “Everyone wanted to know if it all was true, everythin’ about Ms. Novak killin’ her own kids and buryin’ them in the backyard. They spent days out there tearin’ it all up, lookin’ for bones or clothes or somethin’.” She shook her head again. “But nothin’ was ever found. She’d already been booked for murder by then, so we had little doubt that her killin’ the kids was possible, but there just wasn’t anything out there’a those kids to prove she did. If they are dead, and she did kill’em, she was smarter than to bury’em in her own damn yard, that’s for sure.” Dean nodded.

 

“Well, thanks again,” he agreed, smiling. “Again, if a name or anything else comes to mind, let me know.” He paused. “Actually, wait. One more thing. Any idea on where she ran to?”

 

Mrs. Reshnikov shook her head. “Not me,” she said. “I was happy to see the back of’er; she caused too many problems ‘round here.” She paused, seeming to think a moment. “M’sure you could ask Jeremy, though. Jeremy McAlister. He lives jus’ down the road.” She rolled her eyes. “Dumb fuck was practically in love with Ms. Novak, and I don’t think he talked to her once in his damn life.” Dean smiled and nodded, taking down the address she rattled quickly off to him, like an after-thought.

 

“Perfect. Thank you, Ma’am,” he agreed, shaking her hand and heading for the door.

 

“Officer?” The woman called just as Dean stepped out, before the door could close entirely. “I got a question.”

 

“Sure,” Dean agreed.

 

“If som’men bad was gonna happen in this town, to us’n our families, you’d tell us, right?” Dean nodded.

 

“If you were in danger, definitely,” he agreed.

 

“You swear?” she persisted.

 

“I swear, ma’am,” he replied, smiling. “Thanks again for pointin’ me in the right direction.”

 

“Sure thing,” Mrs. Reshnikov said, waving Dean off before shutting her door after him. He hopped into his patrol car and headed off, eager to investigate this strange man who was apparently so fixated upon his suspect’s mother. Hopefully there, he would find something more concrete--even a name, if this guy was obsessed with Tessa as he sounded.

 

~*~

 

The man that answered the door at Dean’s knock was nothing like what Dean expected. Cliché lead him to believe that that Jeremy McAlister would be a short, stout man, probably balding and wearing glasses, dressed with suspenders and a pocket protector and still fawning over his love for a long-dead, sadistic murderer.

 

Instead, however, the man that answered the door was taller than Dean, perhaps even taller than Sam, and boy if he wasn’t _fine,_ even for his sold forty years or so. His hair was blonde and short, but still long enough to have a gorgeous sweep about it, pushing those locks from big brown eyes that stared down quizzically at Dean. The man was obviously muscular, probably a gym five times a week kind of fit, and for a second Dean, honestly, could only be stunned. _This_ was the guy? The guy who’d been so in love with some out-of-place serial killer?

 

“Uh,” the man said slowly, quietly, his voice fairly deep when Dean didn’t introduce himself after an extended few seconds. “Can I… can I help you, Officer?” Dean cleared his throat, fidgeted his hands a little, then nodded.

 

“I’m Officer Winchester with the LCPD, and I’m looking for this man--” he handed him the composite of their suspect, “or information on his mother, Tessa Novak? She lived around here, maybe about twenty years ago or so…?”

 

The man paled, staring at the composite for a long few moments before swallowing, slowly parting his lips again. “I… what?” he asked weakly, seeming abruptly shaken by Dean’s question and the picture in his fingers. “You-- why?”

 

“We’re just looking for her son,” Dean explained. “The man in the picture.”

 

“What for?” Jeremy asked again. “What’s happened?”

 

“We’re just considering him as a suspect on a recent case. It's nothing could should be concerned about.”

 

“Uh… but… then why are you talking to _me_ about it, then?” Jeremy asked. “Who told you to come see me?” Dean shrugged.

 

“I'm canvassing the whole neighborhood, sir. Why? Were you particularly close to Tessa or her son?”

 

The man appeared to go bright red. “No,” he said immediately, almost snapping. “Of course not. That-- why would you ask me that? Of course not.”

 

“Alright, sir,” Dean agreed. “So, did you ever see this man around here? Do you know his name, or the names of any siblings?”

 

“No,” the man said flatly, shoving the composite back toward Dean, already half-pulling back into his home, ready to shut the front door the second Dean took the photo back into hand.

 

“Wait, Jeremy,” Dean insisted. “I know about how close you were to Tessa, and I need you to answer these questions.”

 

“I--” Jeremy began, haltingly, as if choosing whether or not to lie. “Close? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

 

“Your relationship with Ms. Novak, Jeremy.”

 

“I knew her,” Jeremy said quickly, almost abruptly. “But I never had any relationship with her, if that’s what you’re after. I wasn’t a father of some kid’a hers.” Dean nodded, mostly to appease him.

 

“How well did you know Miss Novak? Just as neighbors, or…?”

 

“Of course just as neighbors,” Jeremy snapped. “Not even that. I don’t think I ever said more than a hello to her. I was a twenty year old kid, Officer, and I lived here with my parents; I wasn’t after some mother with her twelve kids. Can’t you tell how awful that sounds? I’d never pull something like that, okay? I wouldn’t.” Dean nodded slowly, considering.

 

“So, why do people ‘round here seem to assume that you liked her so much, Mr. McAlister?” he asked calmly, taking on a tone he’d hoped he wouldn't have to use.

 

“I don’t know. Ask them,” Jeremy said coldly. “Good-looking or not, I wasn’t after Ms. Novak, or Anna, or any other people in that kooky family of hers.”

 

“Anna?” Dean asked instantly, latching onto the name and holding tight when Jeremy’s cheeks suddenly flushed a very bright red. “Was she one of Tessa’s kids.”

 

“Yeah,” Jeremy said quickly. “So?”

 

“You know her name.”

 

“They were kids,” Jeremy snapped. “I heard her yell at them in her yard, it happens, okay?”

 

Dean narrowed his own eyes a bit at the heat in Jeremy’s sarcastic reply. “So the others’ names were?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

 

Jeremy’s cheeks seemed to get even redder, and he opened his mouth to reply, only to flounder a bit, leaving Dean in the obvious position of checkmate as he struggled to find a knowledgable reply that he couldn’t actually come up with, the silence stretching on for a good twenty or so seconds between them. Finally Jeremy slowly closed his gaping mouth, a shaky breath escaping through his slimly-parted lips.

 

“I wasn’t into their mom, okay?” Jeremy spoke finally, quietly, his eyes still continuing the near-stare down the two of them had been having for the past couple of minutes. “I wasn’t.” He finally shifted his eyes away, and Dean understood before Jeremy even continued, his voice now a very low mutter. “It was Anna. I was dating her daughter, Anna.”

 

“Anna,” Dean said, nodding, resisting the urge to jot this down like an eager greenhorn right in front of Jeremy, especially while the guy was strung up almost tightly enough to snap. “When?”

 

“The summer before Ms. Novak got chased outta here,” Jeremy said, flickering his eyes back to Dean. “I was twenty, I was home from college for the summer, and we just hit it off.” He huffed a little. “We weren’t exactly… public. Okay? That’s probably why everybody seemed to think I was into her mom.” He shuddered. “Ms. Novak was young, but it wasn’t like she was _that_ young.”

 

“Right,” Dean agreed. “And you kept this thing with Anna quiet because...?”

 

Jeremy groaned heavily. “‘Cause she was only fifteen at the time,” he said, as if admitting to a heady crime. “She didn’t look it, not a chance, but she was. She wasn’t even legally old enough for us to… you know,” he said, shifting uncomfortably but pressing on in his confession. “And in a town like this, us being together was like an--a bad omen or something, and not just because she was younger than me like she was. The people around here avoided her whole family like they had some kind of plague, my parents included. I mean, folks in this part of town are the strict, overly churchy type, and most of them still are. If people had known about us, we would have been in a-- in a _shitload_ of trouble, okay?”

 

He shook his head. “Not to mention that her mom was nuts. Like, flat out nuts. You know that, right? Everyone around here thinks Ms. Novak killed all of her own kids that year and that’s what got her run out of town. Then she got caught and everything, they put her in the electric chair. She was actually a killer.” He shrugged. “I mean, I guess no one proved she really killed all of her own kids, but with that… I mean, us assuming she did after she’d been outed kind of made sense, didn’t it? If she’d known about me and Anna back then, back when all of us just thought she was just some… some wacko with her huge band of creepy kids… I don’t even really want to think about what she might’a done, then, if she’d known.”

 

“You think she might’ve hurt you if she’d found out,” Dean confirmed. Jeremy sighed heavily in response.

 

“Maybe,” he said, giving another little shrug. “I mean, the whole town watched her like a hawk, though, back then, waiting for her to give them a reason to shun her even more or something. I think at the time Anna and I were more worried that Anna would get the brunt of it if her mom found out she was out dating someone like me... but I guess if Ms. Novak really did kill her own kids, then yeah, maybe she would have done something to me. Guess I’m glad I never really had to find that out.” Dean chuckled in dry agreement.

 

“Got that right,” he agreed. “You ever know any of Anna’s siblings?” Jeremy sighed, giving a little shake of his head.

 

“I mean, I saw them around, I guess,” he said idly. “There were a bunch of ‘em, y’know. Mostly boys.” He considered. “I guess there was one that always seemed a little stranger than the rest, and that kinda says something, you know?”

 

He frowned, eyes flickering down to the composite clutched in Dean’s fist. “And now that I think about it….” Dean hesitated to get too excited, but asked nevertheless.

 

“Got a name for me?”

 

“Not a name,” Jeremy frowned, re-receiving the photo representation that Dean extended again the minute he saw Jeremy even barely starting to reach for it. “But this guy… yeah, this could honestly be him.” He made a couple of motions at different parts of the man’s profile. “He’s got the hair and the eyes… a lot of his features look a lot like Anna’s did….” He nodded. “This could be that kid. But I thought Ms. Novak’s kids were all dead? Could this really be him?”

 

“Looks like it,” Dean said, nodding. “We’ve got pretty solid evidence connecting him to Tessa, but no name yet, All of her kids were listed by name in her criminal profile, but none of them have any photos ‘cause Tessa wouldn't allow their pictures to be taken, and since they were all minors at the time and she still had custody, there was nothing we could do.” He shrugged. “Then a bunch of them went missing, of course, and so it wasn’t like anyone got any pictures of any of them as adults.”

 

“They didn’t have passports or anything either?” Jeremy asked curiously. “Or social security or something?”

 

Dean shook his head. “Except for their birth certificates, there was nothing that even really proved all of these kids existed. They never went to school. They never had insurance, or got married According to the system, they were born, and then they all vanished.”

 

“Yikes,” Jeremy agreed, staring at the picture a moment longer before handing it back to Dean, shaking his head, just as Dean heard from behind himself the sounds of a car pulling up into the small house’s driveway. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t tell you which one he was.” His eyes flickered over Dean’s shoulder, and he cleared his throat a little. “And that’s my wife… I’d rather her not-not know about most of this stuff. You know?”

 

“I completely understand. Just a few more things: do you have any idea where the Novaks ended up? They moved away before Tessa was found out, but obviously there's no record of where they went or for how long.”

 

Jeremy shook his head. “Sorry, no clue. The kids went missing after I went back to college, and Ms. Novak was gone when I got back for the summer break.” Dean clicked his tongue.

 

“So you're not in touch with Anna anymore?”

 

“Never heard from her again after I went back to school,” Jeremy said, as Dean heard the sound of a car door opening and closing, then the sound of shoes making their way up toward the front door.

 

“Jeremy?” asked a light voice, as a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman came up the drive, brows creased in concern. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?”

 

“Everything’s fine, ma’am. Just canvassing the neighbourhood, looking for anyone who recognises this man, or this woman,” Dean said, holding up the pictures of Tessa and and her son. The woman frowned at the photos.

 

“Well,” she said carefully, pointing at Tessa’s photo. “I don’t know who she is.” She pointed at the man’s photo. “But I saw him in my office building this morning, if that helps.”

 

“This morning?” Dean nearly squeaked, equal parts disappointed and overjoyed. “Where do you work? And what was he doing there?” The woman shrugged.

 

“I don’t know. I didn’t talk to him,” she said. “I just passed through the building lobby today, and I saw him leaving a note for my boss with his secretary. Then he left,” She furrowed her neat eyebrows. “Why? Is he dangerous?”

 

“Where do you work?” Dean asked instead.

 

“Biggerson Incorporated Sales and Management. I asked you a question, Officer.”

“Veronica--” Jeremy attempted, to no avail.

 

“If he was dangerous, I have a right to know.” She insisted. Dean huffed.

 

“It’s important that we find him,” he said simply, and the woman seemed to catch his drift. “Where’s your office located?”

 

“It’s on MLK,” Veronica said, “But he left this morning, he’s not--”

“Thanks!” Dean shouted, already diving for his car, ripping the door open as fast as he could and jumping inside. “Thank you!” As soon as he got out of the driveway, he was calling Benny.

 

“Hey, listen. I need you to call Biggerson Incorporated, on MLK, and get their security video from this morning.”

 

“What?” Benny grunted. “What’re you goin’ on about, brother?”

 

“He was there, Benny. I was goin’ door to door in Tessa’s old neighborhood, and this old lady told me to look for this guy who used to have a crush on her, so I did and-- look, point is, our guy was at those offices this morning. He left this note with the lady’s boss, her name is Veronica… Veronica McAlister.”

 

“Are you serious? You can’t be serious,” Benny said, perking up. “You’ve only been gone for two hours, man!” Dean clicked his tongue.

 

“What can I say, I get shit done,” he replied. “So get over to Biggerson Inc. Talk to this lady’s boss, get the security footage. Maybe get with the city and get stuff from surrounding traffic cams; I’ll be there in ten.”

 

“Alright, alright. See you then. And dude?”

 

“Yep?”

 

“Don’t forget the pineapple shakes.” Dean laughed.

 

“We got better things to worry about than what a couple desk jockeys want, man,” he replied.

 

“Do it outta respect, dude. They’re kinda the only way you ever got a new lead here.”

 

“Fine, fine,” Dean gave in. “I'll see you at the office. We’re close on this. We're really close.” Filled with a kind of excitement he hadn't felt in a while, he went so far as to flick on the lights and the siren--but only after hanging up on Benny, so his slightly more straight-laced partner wouldn't get up in arms.

 

Benny was already there and waiting at Biggerson Inc.’s building when Dean arrived, to Dean’s eager relief, the more calm officer raising his brows at Dean when he practically came racing in, itching with a new lead in his clutches.

 

“Just in time,” Benny drawled as Dean stopped at his side. “They jus’ went back to look at the tapes, said they’d be back in a minute.”

 

“Awesome,” Dean grinned. “Hey, meantime, let's figure out who this lady’s boss is. He's the one who got that note, you know.”Benny shrugged.

 

“Alright. You got a name for this lady?” Dean gave Benny a “duh” look.

 

“Wouldn't be much good if I didn't, huh?” he teased. “Her name’s Veronica McAlister. Seems like a middle management type, but I guess we’ll see. Let's find us a secretary, huh?” he grinned, waggling his brows.

 

Benny snorted, but nodded. “Alrighty,” he said. “But I still gotta wait for info back on the tapes, so why don’t you find a secretary to question and I’ll meet up with you in, like, ten minutes?” Dean nodded.

 

“Works for me,” he agreed, already trekking off to find the next link in the chain of the lead.

 

“Be nice!” Benny called dryly after him, smirking. “Don’t assault them too badly with all your happy-jumpy crap.”

 

“It's called enthusiasm, smartass!” Dean replied, taking the stairs two at a time on his way up to find a secretary. He was on the phone when Dean arrived, walking up to his desk and giving him a patient smile when he looked the officer’s way.

 

“I'll give her that message,” he agreed to the person on the other side of the call. “Yes ma’am. Okay. Thank you.” He hung up, before turning to look at Dean, offering him a polite, practiced smile in return. “Afternoon, officer. What can I help you with?”

 

“I'm looking for a note left by someone earlier today? A dark-haired man, early twenties?” Dean said. “It would be for the boss of someone named Veronica McAlister….” He looked wary.

 

“Can I see a warrant, sir?” Dean smiled.

 

“Of course. Right here.” He looked through the papers a ride-along newbie had thrust upon him, finally finding their warrant and offering it to the secretary. “There we go. That should have everything you need in there.”

 

The man hummed, taking the warrant with one hand and pulling on a set of large, square glasses with the other. He slowly and intently read over the page, making sure everything in it was legitimate and correct, checking for enough perfection to pass his standards. After appearing to read over the warrant at least twice, the secretary nodded, looking back up at Dean. “What was it you said you were interested in looking at, again?” he asked, handing the warrant back to him.

 

“I'm looking for a note that was left this morning? For the boss of someone named Veronica McAlister….”

 

The man nodded. “Well, sir,” he said, “your warrant appears to be perfectly in order. However, the note was addressed to Mr. Redding, so I can’t legally hand it over to you without his consent. He’d have to give it to you or give me permission to do so.”

 

Dean scowled a little, somewhat disappointed. “Right,” he said, sighing, “Is there any chance he’s in the building?”

 

The secretary shook his head. “I’m sorry, Officer,” he offered, “Mr. Redding stepped out a couple of hours ago and hasn’t returned yet. I could tell you where he went, if you really need him, since he didn’t explicitly state not to.”

 

“Please,” Dean agreed immediately, nodding. The secretary nodded back, turning to his phone.

 

“Just a moment and I’ll find that out for you,” he said, just as Dean saw Benny coming down the hall toward them, a manilla folder in hand.

 

“Anything?” Dean asked immediately, to which Benny just held out the folder in his direction for Dean to take.

 

“Can’t see too many details of his face or nothin’,” Benny said as Dean’s eyes scanned over the man pictured in the grainy, black-and-white security tape screenshots he held. “But you can tell it’s him.”

 

Dean nodded, heart pounding excitedly as his eyes picked out the details of each screenshot. One picture showed the man at the desk, then another just a few seconds later as the man wrote onto a sticky note. The third showed the man handing a female secretary the sticky note, but then the fourth picture caught the man almost perfectly face-forward to the camera as he turned to leave. He was dressed in a long coat, tie, and slacks, but Dean focused almost solely on the face, recognizing it immediately for what it was: the man from the composite.

 

Their killer.

 

“Officer?” the male secretary said abruptly, now off the phone, drawing Dean’s attention as he scrawled an address onto a pad of paper. “Mr. Redding took a company car to Biggerson’s Warehouse Number 2704,” he informed Dean, finishing the address and handing it over. “Apparently it wasn’t supposed to be more than a routine check, but those don’t take more than an hour tops, and it’s been almost two and a half, now.”

 

Benny turned immediately to Dean, concern written over his features. “Do you think--”

 

“He could be a new target,” Dean said immediately, finishing Benny’s thought. He quickly shoved the screenshots back into Benny’s fingers, hurriedly grabbing onto the written address and his cruiser keys. “I’m gonna go out there, scout out the area.”

 

“The guy could still be there!” Benny argued. “You can’t go alone!”

 

“If he’s still there, then we’ll need more than just the two of us!” Dean insisted, already hurrying toward the door. “Just go get more back-up from the precinct and meet me there!”

 

“Don’t you fuckin’ go in there alone!” Benny barked after him, but Dean just kept going, jogging to his cruiser, blood pumping fast with excitement, pretending to not have heard his partner’s irritated but concern-oriented order after him.

 

He wouldn’t be able to keep the promise after all. He was too close this time, and if that guy _was_ still there….

 

Well, Dean had to do what he had to do.

 

~*~

 

Within the next ten minutes, Dean was whipping his car into the parking lot of the warehouse the secretary had given him the address for, adrenaline flooding his body with earnest and hurried excitement. He parked and hopped out, the sky already dark, the sun long since set. It was late, but the energy in the air made him feel as if he’d just woken up, alive and eager. Just across the way Dean could see a car waiting outside the warehouse, and his blood thrummed in his ears, knowing he’d come to the right place. He got his gun out, safety on, ready for whatever waited for him inside, killer inside or no, and snuck up to the cavernous mouth of the building to begin his scope out.

 

The warehouse was a maze of huge shipping containers, stacked seven or eight high, arranged in rows and columns that kept Dean from seeing the whole place at once. Of course. He stepped inside, worried at first about his immediate surroundings, only looking right in front of and right behind himself. When he found the coast was clear, he continued, back to the wall, feeling very much like someone in a movie. It wasn't that he hadn't done things like this before, things that seemed worthy of a movie or at least an episode of a cop show, but it always made him more cognizant of every bit of the world surrounding him, revving up his instincts until he was practically hyperaware of every dust particle in the whole place.

 

Which made it extremely strange when, when a man that was practically a photocopy of Dean’s composite picture, the man straight from the security video’s screenshots, clothes and all, walked straight out from the hallway of boxes, dragging Veronica McAlister’s dead, bloody boss behind him by merely his ankle, Dean jumped nearly five feet into the damn air, completely blind-sided by the appearance of the killer, who apparently hadn’t noticed Dean’s entrance one bit until right at this moment. At the same time, the man, dressed in no more than a blood-stained, crumpled white shirt, black pants, and a crooked blue tie, seemed to start a little as well, jerking to a stop, big blue eyes staring at Dean, seeming very much surprised that not only had the place of his most recent murder been found, but that it had also been found while he was still inside of it.

 

There was a good minute or so where the two of them just stared at each other, momentarily shocked by the presence of the other one in front of them, until finally Dean’s mind quickly collected itself, snapping back to attention and forming his lips to shout at the murderer standing before him. At the very same time, however, the man dropped the corpse’s ankle, and was running in the other direction before the foot had even hit the floor, taking off at a speed that nearly floored Dean once again.

 

“Hey!” Dean spat, breaking into a sprint after the man, running as fast as he could manage, his gun still drawn and cocked as he attempted to weave in and out of the maze of boxes after the escaping criminal, eyes keeping desperately locked on the man trying to outrun him. “Stop! Hey!”

 

The man gave no shout or other verbal response in return; however, he seemed to pick up the pace, if that was even possible, dashing even faster between columns of ceiling-high fast food boxes, threading through the cardboard labyrinth like a snake through tall grass, a dangerous combination of knowledgeable and quick, allowing him to evade Dean, who was becoming closer and closer to losing his quarry entirely.

 

“Stop!” Dean snarled again, his legs moving desperately faster as he tried to stay on the criminal’s trail, determined to catch the killer that was slipping faster and faster through his fingers like he were but a pool of water in Dean’s cupped hands, every corner allowing more of himself to slip from Dean’s sight. By the time they’d gone another seven corners, the man was gone, lost in the sea of Biggerson’s packaged meat substitutes. Dean felt the ball of fervent purpose in his chest unravel, withering into a disappointed realization of his loss, no longer able to see the white of the man’s shirt, or hear the sounds of his light, rapid footsteps. Dean hissed under his breath and took a moment to kick a box, huffing angrily.

 

“Fuck! Fucking...fuck!” he shouted, his voice reverberating in the dim building. Just as he was ready to sulk back to his car, something in his head reminded him: _you can't give up that easy. What the fuck would Bobby think? Or Benny, or Jo; hell, even those stupid tech assholes. Come on, suck it up and keep after the guy!_

 

With a few more bitter curses, he did just that, bolting after him in a seemingly random direction, near desperate to find his lost prey. There was still silence around him, however, no hints of another human being anywhere nearby, and Dean only managed a few more minutes of seemingly endless searching, breathlessly dashing around every corner he approached, lost in the cardboard maze this warehouse was, before starting to accept that the man had indeed managed to get away, to slip from the building and get away, leaving Dean empty-handed, with the body, the entirety of the mess he’d made. Dean groaned, finally taking a long pause at another fork in the cardboard boxes, putting his hands to his knees and bending over slightly, drawing in deep, angry breaths. He kept his head up, kept his eyes opened, in case there was some sign of him, ready to start the chase if need be, though reason still continued to insist that the man was now long gone, far away from where he could be caught and cuffed.

 

_“What’s your name?”_

 

Dean nearly shot into the air again, practically spasming up from his more vulnerable position, eyes wide as he whipped around once, twice, three times, eyes searching for where the quiet but deep voice had sounded from. He saw nothing, but he knew, he _knew_ he’d heard the voice, heard the question ringing through the air around him, directed at him, a seemingly meaningless inquiry.

 

“Who are you?” Dean barked irritably, raising and cocking his gun again, still circling at an even pace, looking for even a bare glimpse of the criminal he’d been chasing. “Come out with your hands in the air, _now!”_

 

Nothing for a long moment, just silence, before the voice sounded again, as if from nowhere, or all around. _“What’s your name?”_

 

“I’m not fucking around!” Dean shouted. “Get the _fuck_ out here, you sadistic son of a bitch!”

 

 _“You’re not answering my question,”_ the voice murmured, not sarcastically, nor playfully, but rather in a matter-of-fact sort of way, completely, implausibly serious.

 

“Yeah, and you're not answering mine!” Dean snapped. “Who are you?” He kept his gun up, walking down a row of boxes, hopefully towards the voice… it seemed to come from all around him, it was everywhere, it was everything, almost as if its origin was something supernatural.

 

 _“You already know who I am, don’t you?”_ the voice insisted. _“You found me here.”_

 

“That’s right,” Dean agreed, silently padding closer to the general direction of the voice. “The name Tessa Novak ring any bells? Or maybe your sister, huh? Anna, right?”

 

 _“Only one of my sisters,”_ the voice spoke. _“You figured out their names. My mother’s name, and Anna’s.”_

 

“I'm still closer than anyone has gotten before,” Dean said. “And hey, if you come out now, maybe we can take it easy on you… give you life instead ‘a the chair. Unless getting fried is a family tradition for you guys,” he prodded.

 

 _“It was a break from the standard, I’ll admit.”_ Dean scoffed.

 

“What's the standard, then? For the Novak clan?”

 

 _“Knives,”_ the disembodied voice replied flatly. _“you_ still _haven’t answered my question.”_

 

“Because I don’t fucking owe you anything,” Dean snarled. “You’re a fucking murderer.”

 

“ _Says you.”_

 

“Says everyone!” Dean snapped in furious reply. “You’ve killed innocent people, asshole!”

 

 _“How do you know they’re innocent?”_ the voice asked immediately.

 

“What?”

 

 _“They’re only innocent to you,”_ the voice insisted. _“To the way you see the rules of the world. You don’t know if they’re actually innocent. You don’t know what they’ve really done.”_

 

“It doesn’t matter what _you_ think innocence should be,” Dean spat. “There’s laws for a reason, man. The bottom line is that you killed people, you _murdered_ people, brutally, without any fuckin’ remorse.”

 

_“Perhaps they didn’t deserve remorse.”_

 

“And who gets to decide that? _You?”_

 

 _“Why not?”_ the voice asked coolly, just as Dean heard the barest of rustling noises from his left side. _“How come the law designates who really deserves mercy or not? Why does the law grant mercy to the unjust, and restrict justice from the merciful?”_

 

“Funny,” Dean said dryly, carefully turning his form and taking a few slow, silent steps toward the cardboard boxes he’d heard the noise coming from. “You talk nice for a cold-blooded killer.”

 

_“You assume that because I’m a killer that I have no feelings?”_

 

“People with feelings don't go on fucking killing sprees+,” Dean countered, slowly reaching out toward the stack of boxes.

 

_“It doesn’t make you right, either.”_

 

Dean gave a quick swipe, knocking the boxes over with a firm hand, letting it fly back to his gun in preparation. However, the area behind the boxes was now empty, and Dean cursed almost silently below his breath, lowering his gun only a fraction, pricking his ears desperately for any other noises he could lock onto. There was silence for another long minute, however, before the voice spoke again, dry tones grating ever further on Dean’s thin nerves.

 

_“So not all of your assumptions are correct, I see.”_

 

“Get fucked,” Dean snapped back angrily, returning to his slow circling, carefully seeking out the criminal he preyed upon.

 

 _“I’m only pointing out the logic of the situation,”_ the man’s voice returned, almost in a casual way, like they’d fallen into some form of friendly banter and they weren’t actually sworn enemies, in a loose sense of the word.

 

“Oh, bite me, freak,” Dean returned irritably, letting his aggravation fuel his words, less of a taunt now and more of an argument. “Why are you even still here, huh? Gonna come after me too, add me to the little trainwreck you’ve got goin’ on in town?”

 

 _“A trainwreck implies that I’ve failed,”_ the voice returned simply. _“Which I believe that we can both very well tell isn’t true.”_

 

“Maybe you haven’t failed yet,” Dean replied, “but you will. I’m gonna catch you, even if it kills me

 

_“Is that a threat, or a promise?”_

 

“I’m _so_ gonna get your pretty little ass locked up,” Dean grunted, seeing just the barest whip of a tan coat in his peripheral vision and yanking quickly around, heart racing. “You’re gonna get locked up for so fuckin’ long, I swear my life on it.”

 

 _“Again,”_ the voice said, _“threat? Or promise?”_ A minor pause before: _“You think my ass is pretty?”_

 

“Oh, you should be so lucky,” Dean replied, stalking toward another tall stack of boxes and giving them a swift kick with his foot, cussing louder this time when, once again, there was only an empty space behind them, the criminal once again hidden in the cardboard jungle surrounding Dean. He huffed, backing off, keeping his gun raised more actively this time. “Why don’t you just come out now?” he demanded. “Save yourself the trouble of me finding you and kicking your ass?”

 

 _“If you kick asses like you kick boxes, then I don’t have anything to worry about,”_ the voice replied, the cool tone actually laced with sarcasm this time, causing Dean’s blood to boil even hotter.

 

“You really are a little shit, you know that?” Dean said tersely.

 

_“You’re not the first one to have told me, but you’ve most recently become the last.”_

 

“A smart-ass and a psycho? Think we’re so fucking clever, huh?”

 

“Smart enough to sneak up behind you,” the voice whispered suddenly in Dean’s ear, and Dean had no chance to even register that it came from behind him before he was being shoved, _hard,_ his body careening forward and into a stack of boxes, collapsing onto the cement floor from the force of the blow as the boxes came barreling down around him. His gun flew from his hands, hitting a nearby wall and clattering in a series of half-bounces onto the floor, sliding away from him. Distantly, now that the boxes had settled on top of him in a messy pile, Dean could hear rapid footsteps coming for him, light but quick, unhurried and confident.

 

 _Get up!_ Dean’s brain hissed, his heart practically slamming into his rib cage from the force of the adrenaline in his veins. _Get up, you idiot, get up and get your fucking gun!_

 

Dean panted, bracing himself before shooting to his feet, getting just a glimpse of dark hair and blue eyes coming at him as he lunged for his handgun, grasping desperately for the handle. His fingers only just closed around it when he felt hands clutching into the back of his jacket, and he was slung this time, by a grip that seemed almost inhumanly strong, right back into the pile of boxes that had come down on him before, his back and right arm taking the brunt of the blow as he smashed into the pile, slamming back down onto the dusty, rock-hard concrete floor. A muttered curse escaped his lips on instinct, the muted pain of bruising skin down making itself known from his impacted arm and spine. He lunged for the gun again, desperate, as if willing it closer, but fell short as the man gave him a swift high kick in the side of the head. His vision blurred and darkened into spots, his head swimming, knowing he was about to black out. He tried to speak before he slumped over, but all he could manage was a soft noncommittal noise before his eyes closed and he collapsed to one side.

 

~*~

 

Dean’s awareness came in slow and broken waves after that, the time interminable, images swarming behind his eyes as he laid on… something. It was soft, not like the floor of the warehouse, but the air didn't smell like a hospital room. If anything, it smelled more like… lavender? No, something more citrus-y, like oranges or pomegranates… either way, the smell didn’t really say dusty warehouse floor. He vaguely noted the world his eyes actually managed to pick up, able to recognize a few things: a blue pillow, a fruit bowl, the leg of a wooden chair, minor details that never seemed to make sense or fit together to form a solid picture. It was like a strange collage of things, none in the same style or colours, but his brain seemed to throb every time he tried to stay awake long enough to really figure out the situation, the darkness of unconsciousness moving faster than his reasoning could. It seemed close to overwhelming him, like a wave crashing at his feet, dragging him down into depths too harsh to escape from.

 

It wasn’t until he really _did_ smell the dusty floors and molded wood of the old warehouse that he slowly came back to reality, finally able to find awareness in the dank and cold of the abandoned area. His head still throbbed with pain, but somehow the ache didn’t seem as bad as he felt that it would have been, once he slowly remembered that he’d taken a nice, heavy boot right into the side of his fucking face. He groaned heavily, and his brain insisted that he get up, but it took at least ten minutes of coaxing against his sore body before he finally managed to move his heavy limbs, getting them up under himself and shoving himself up into a half-sitting position.

 

The first thing his eyes refocused on, after a few forceful blinks, was the corpse of Veronica McAlister’s boss, laid out before him in a crumpled position like a waiting present. His body was now cold, rigor mortis setting in fast. Instinctively, despite his aches all over, Dean scrambled backwards, falling flat on his ass yet again. His head and limbs all felt detached, like sluggish worms that he drug alongside him, but they got him away from the body anyhow as his mind worked to evaluate the situation, remembering what had happened. He calmed for a couple of long minutes after his little scare, allowing himself to take in his new surroundings.

 

Wherever he’d been before that had looked and smelled so curiously domestic was no longer within reach; instead, he was set out by the warehouse’s main door, the door he’d come in through when he’d come after the criminal that had put him out as easily as a bug stomped under a work boot. As he looked, he found that next to him lay his gun, as well as his wallet and closed badge, laid out as if in offering. Upon getting his heavy limbs to move again, and checking both his badge case and wallet, he found nothing missing, but when he opened up the cash corner of his wallet to see if he’d been stolen from, a little piece of paper fell from those depths, landing at his thigh just as he heard the warehouse’s door slam open, and distantly heard Benny bark his name as his eyes followed the piece of paper where it fluttered to the floor by his thigh.

 

The next few minutes was a rush of other police cars showing up as Benny called for back-up, but Dean wasn’t privy to the body’s rescue and search of the warehouse; instead, Benny mostly carried Dean out to his cruiser, where he continued to insist he be taken back.

 

“I need the paper, Benny, there was--in my wallet, it was--”

 

“You need a doctor, brother,” Benny replied. “Just take it easy. Wait here until I come back, huh?” Dean continued to push, though, relentless.

 

“Fuck it, Benny, I need-- he took me to this house, don't you fucking get it? He took me to his house and there was-- all this fruit--”

 

“Whatever you say, brother,” Benny dismissed, gently patronising. “Just lay down, okay? Try and rest, but try not to fall asleep. Just focus on som’men else until we can get to the hospital.”

 

“I don’t need a hospital!” Dean insisted. “I need the paper! There was paper in my wallet, Benny, I need it!”

 

“Brother, it’s _evidence_ now,” Benny insisted, forcing a seat belt around Dean’s waist, trying to push him down into a horizontal position so he could rest. “If it’s still there, you gotta leave it for the team.”

 

“But Benny--!”

 

“But nothin’. Sit your ass down before I cuff ya to the headrest.” Dean, in his strange state, muttered something about how maybe he wanted Benny to cuff him to the headrest, sitting dejected as Benny headed off to assist with the investigation.

 

But not for long; Dean, not one to give up, managed to unclip the seat belt and slink over to the door, searching the ground for the paper, the paper, where-- yes! There it was, a white speck against the grey gravel. Dean bolted to it, grabbing it and unfolding it eagerly, his eyes scanning desperately over the paper as he heard Benny yelling angrily at his back. He barely absorbed what the paper really said before Benny’s hand was latching onto the back of his jacket, yanking him away and dragging him back toward the cruiser, spitting irritable curses in Dean’s direction as he forced Dean back into the backseat, slamming the door after him, locking Dean in the car as he stalked around to the front seat, already calling up to the office to talk to Bobby.

 

Dean, however, didn’t move this time, allowing himself to lie back as he thought over those few words on that little slip of paper, just those few little words, seemingly harmless, though they’d sent just a slight shiver down his spine (even though he couldn't quite explain why).

 

_Nice name. I think I just might see you around, Dean. -C_

 

~*~

 

“What the fuckin’ hell do you think you were fuckin’ doin’?” Bobby spat from his desk, glaring at the older Winchester where he stood before his boss,

 

“Sir, I just--there was a lead and I wanted to jump on it, I--”

 

“You destroyed that evidence, boy,” Bobby continued. “We coulda gotten som’m from it-- even prints-- but then you had to go and put your goddamn paws all over it. You had to put your fuckin’ paws all fuckin’ over it, didn’t you, you fuckin’ idiot?”

 

“It wasn't intentional, sir, it--if I hadn't done something, I was afraid--”

 

“Afraid your teammates couldn't handle their shit?” Bobby snapped. “Think you’re the big man on this case? This is so much fucking bigger than you, asshole. I think you oughta take a break, Winchester, before you get too big for your britches.”

 

“Bobby, you have to let me stay on this case,” Dean insisted. “It's important. Look, I've seen the guy in person. I've put in the man hours, I’ve done the leg work, I--”

 

“You've fucked it up for the whole department,” Bobby interrupted. “Go home, Winchester. Get your shit together. You can come back once this case is dealt with.” Dean’s face crumpled, crushed. “You know what this means, hand it over.” Reluctantly, Dean went through the process he'd seen other poor saps endure before-- hand over the gun and the badge and the cuffs and slump out, stripped until they could prove themselves worthy.

 

Benny was waiting outside, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and he moved forward when Dean stepped out, but his eyes immediately found Dean’s empty holster, gaze running over the missing items Dean kept on him. Instead of speaking, he paused instead, parted lips moving carefully back to closing, watching Dean walk up with sympathetic eyes, smartly deciding to keep his mouth about the situation.

 

“Drop me at home?” Dean asked, deferent. “Rhonda at the front desk made me hand over my keys. Bobby’s orders.” Benny nodded, stepping back and pushing the door open, holding it wide open as he waited for Dean to slump through the door, eyes still filled with silent pity.

 

Thankfully, Benny lead Dean out the back way, allowing Dean to avoid the embarrassment of stalking through the front office without all his gear, broadcasting his loss to those who knew what being removed from a case really meant. Glumly, he got into the shotgun seat of Benny’s cruiser, sighing heavily and snapping in as Benny started up the engine.

 

“Tough break,” was all he said.

 

“Preachin’ to the choir,” Dean mumbled, before they descended into silence. The drive seemed to drag on, endless; by the time they reached Dean’s house, he was exhausted, as if he had walked himself all the way there.

 

“I’ll call you up in a couple’a days, alright?” Benny offered after him as Dean climbed out of the car. “Let you know what I can without gettin’ in too much trouble.” He sighed. “Just… try an’ rest, okay? Get some sleep, take the meds the doc gave you.” Dean harrumphed softly, though the small noise spoke volumes to Benny, more shameful gratitude than could be conveyed in words. He slogged inside, ready to hide himself for a few days, humiliated and angry, the part of him that wasn't consumed with frustration still committed to finding the son of a bitch who forced him into this situation.

 

~*~

 

“Dean, you should get out some,” Sam insisted when he payed his brother a visit, a few days after his suspension. “Go to a store. Go for a walk. Get out of the house. You're not doing yourself any favours sulking around here.…” Dean sighed, setting two slices of toast onto a plate and walking over to his brother.

 

“Sammy, I don't need anything. I’m not gonna go to the 7/11 because it'll help improve my mood.”

 

“It _could,”_ Sam insisted. “Come on, Dean, this isn’t like you. Being all cooped up in here is gonna drive you insane, man.”

 

“Sam, I don't feel like going out. It's… I'm… I just don't feel like it, okay? Quit pushing me.” Dean sat down on the sofa beside his brother and turned on the television, already putting toast in his mouth, his chewing almost drowning out his brother.

 

“Oh come on, dude,” Sam insisted, raising his voice over the show and smacking of teeth. “Please. I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay.”

 

“I'm fine. You worry too much.” He shoved the plate towards him, cheeks bulging, and said: “Eat.”

 

Sam crossed his arms irritably. “Can’t you just _think_ about going out?” he persisted. “Just for a little while?”

 

“No,” Dean said firmly. “I'm telling you. I don't need anything. When I need something, I'll go out.”

 

“You _do_ need something: fucking _fresh air.”_ Dean waved a hand.

 

“There's air in my yard. There's air in here. I'm set for air, man.”

 

“You know what I _mean,_ you jerk.” Dean huffed.

 

“If I went to the Kroger and got myself some more coffee and maybe a frozen pie, would that make you happy?”

 

“Immensely.”

 

“Then I'll go. But _you're_ coming too.”

 

Sam snorted. “Fine,” he said simply, and meant it, already grabbing his keys. “Let’s go.”

 

Dean huffed, but complied on the promise he’d made, sulking out to his old Impala, sliding the key into the lock and hopping in. He popped open Sam's door for him and started the car with care, despite his frustration. He could slam his front door or punch at his pillows all he wanted, but he'd never treat his Baby badly. Sam slid in with a satisfied look, but smartly choose to keep quiet while Dean peeled out of the driveway and started out of his neighborhood. Dean tapped his fingers distantly on the steering wheel, humming softly under his breath as he cruised down the road.

 

The drive to Kroger wasn’t more than ten minutes, and once Dean parked he had, again, reservations about actually getting out of the Impala and going in. Sam, however, was already out of the car the second Dean got it in park, and Dean wasn’t going to leave his brother in the parking lot of Kroger, no matter how much Sam really ( _really)_ pissed him off. So he headed inside, begrudgingly, grabbing a cart and barreling towards the coffee. Coffee and pie, coffee and pie, and then he could get out and go home, where he didn't have to deal with the people who he felt sure were all giving him dirty looks.

 

“Hey, Dean, I'm gonna hit the head,” Sam said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. “I'll be back. Don't flake out on me.”

 

“Hm,” Dean grumbled, chucking some Folger's ground coffee into his cart and forging ahead.

 

“I’ll meet you at the car, then!” Sam called after him, sighing to himself as he was only rewarded with a short nod from his brother as Dean turned the corner into the deli and dessert section. Sam gave a little roll of his eyes, but allowed Dean to sulk onward, giving his older brother some deserved space and instead starting toward the frozen vegetables.

 

Dean, meanwhile, rolled right over to the pre-made desserts in the deli section, practically drooling over all of the sweet treats there. Nearby there was a short line of one single person at the bakery’s fresh-baked counter, but Dean wasn’t curious, didn’t even notice them, barely listening to anything around himself--

 

“Two loaves of bread and a vanilla cupcake, please.”

 

Holy shit.

 

Dean froze instantly, ears latching onto the voice speaking at the counter, and though his heart felt as though it were skipping several beats in his chest, he immediately whipped around, eyes wide, his loose fingers nearly dropping the pie in their grasp.

 

Dean saw him from the back. Black hair. Tan coat. Tall stature. It was him. It was _him_ . Holy shit. Holy _fucking--_

 

“Ooh, and a cheesecake sampler as well, if you don’t mind,” the man spoke again in that voice Dean had burned now into his brain, the voice of a murderer, of the man he’d chased down and lost against. The killer was fucking in front of him. Fucking right there, ordering-- ordering fucking _cheesecake_ . Was this some kind of hallucination or something? This couldn’t be fucking _real_. Dean didn't want to give himself away, but he couldn't resist this chance to grab him while he could.

 

The murderer he was after didn’t notice Dean as he came near, nor did the counter worker, who just wrote the man’s order down, nodded, and turned to head into the back to get what he needed. The killer leaned casually on one foot, eyes lingering on the colorful birthday cakes nearby with interest. Under the guise of ordering, Dean approached the counter, hoping the killer wouldn't recognise him.

 

“Lemme get some pie,” he requested, side-eyeing his neighbour the whole time. “One of the fourteen-inch pecan ones. And maybe one of those bear claw things. Thanks.”

 

“Of course, sir,” the man said, placing the killer’s cheesecake on the counter toward him, though said man was still eyeing the birthday cakes, totally unaware of Dean nearby. “Let me just finish with him,” he pointed at the other man, “and then I’ll get that for you, alright?”

 

“Sure,” Dean smiled, warmly. “Take all the time you need.”

 

“Thank you,” the man said politely, before turning to duck back into the back room again. The other man finally seemed to notice his cheesecake on the counter, and he reached for it, still totally unaware of Dean standing _right there,_ just feet from him. Dean didn't speak up, just watched, equal parts amused and terrified. The whole situation seemed so fragile, like the wrong word would shatter the moment and Dean would wake up back at home, in bed, still sleeping.

 

The situation just continued, however, and Dean just sat and watched, realizing he really was awake as the man cracked the cheesecake’s top open, eyes big with eagerness on the cake. After a moment he reached a finger right in and took a swipe of the whipped cream topping it, popping his finger into his mouth and sucking the cream off his finger with a hum of appreciation. Dean’s stomach made a familiar little twist, and his breathing hitched unnoticeably. It felt like arousal, like attraction, but no. No way. Not for a murderer.

 

Said murderer, however, just continued on his way, totally ignorant to Dean’s sudden and strange (and _stupid, Dean Winchester)_ dilemma, taking another fingerfull of whipped cream before gently closing the box, hands seeming so oddly graceful for someone that had used those hands multiple times, even in more than just the past three days alone, to take the lives of innocents. Dean halfheartedly cleared his throat, then, finally, and said, “Good cake?”

 

_Get a name, Winchester. Get a name. Get a name and an address. Get a name and an address and a phone number. Get a phone number._

 

The man blinked, and then he slowly swiveled his head, brows raised as his eyes found Dean. His mildly surprised expression didn’t change one bit, just blinking at Dean, less as though he were shocked at being caught, and more like he were stunned at Dean’s mere existence. After a moment he parted his own lips, speaking in a normal tone back, his voice deep and casual. “Very.”

 

“Sounded like it,” Dean agreed, with a little smile. Did he just flirt with a murderer? The man popped his lips audibly at Dean in return, as if in awkward agreement, just as the counter worker returned, handing over the rest of the killer’s meager, sugary items.

 

“That’ll be fourteen-twenty-four, sir,” the man said, and Dean just watched as the man handed over fifteen dollars in three fives, shovelling his things into a reusable grocery tote hanging from his arm. The man at the counter gave him his change, and the murdered thanked him, with a smile to complete the look, before simply turning and _strolling away._

 

“And--” the cashier began, but Dean held up a hand.

 

“One sec. Hold onto my pie, I'll be right back.”

 

The cashier frowned in confusion, but Dean was already jogging after the other man, still pushing his cart.

 

“Hey,” he said. “Wait up. One sec.”

 

The other man faltered, looking around to peer at Dean, slowing to a stop when he recognized that Dean was, in fact, talking to him. Dean had absolutely no idea where he was going with this-- was he going to apprehend him? Fool him into giving him his number? He'd gotten this far; he couldn't chicken out then.

 

“I know this is kinda… um, cheesy, I guess, and I don't usually come onto people in the grocery store, but I’d like to get your number. Maybe we could see each other again, some place that's not the bakery aisle, huh?” he laughed, playing vulnerable but direct and hoping the little act would get him somewhere.

 

The man blinked at Dean for a moment, before slowly cocking his head, brows rising curiously. “Interesting,” he hummed. “Did you suffer some kind of brain damage when I hit you?” He sighed heavily at his own assumption, his words cool but genuine as Dean actually almost started at how easily the man just owned up to his own fucking actions, completely and accurately  recognizing Dean. “That would be an awful shame.”

 

“So you do know who I am,” Dean said, moving automatically to reach for his gun before stalling. “I _am_ pretty memorable, I guess.”

 

The other man gave a little shrug.”I suppose you could attest to that, Officer.” Dean chuckled.

 

“Well, I got my share of souvenirs from you, too,” he replied. “The bruises make a good reminder.”

 

“Apologies,” the man said simply. “I did what I could to take care of them.”

 

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “I don’t know if you missed the memo, but serial killers don’t usually play nurse for the people who are after them.”

 

“I believe that only applies to those that have a reasonable chance of catching… serial killers,” the man said slowly, wrinkling his nose at the label, like he couldn’t quite assign it to himself, even if that really was what he was. Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“You don’t think I got a shot at catchin’ you, huh? Is that why you’re shootin’ the shit in a Kroger with a cop who knows exactly who you are?”

 

“A cop who’s no longer allowed on my case,” the man replied easily, lighting an irritable spark in Dean’s belly. “And I don’t believe you’ve caught me at all. We’re merely coexisting here while I buy my pastries.” Despite his annoyance, Dean couldn’t help but be a little amused by the stranger. Here was this cold-blooded killer, “coexisting” right beside him with a cupcake and two loaves of bread. He thought his life couldn’t get more unusual than it was in that moment, but he was mistaken.

 

“Anyways,” the man said, sighing, as if this whole situation had been but a slow disruption to his day. “I suppose I should be on my way. I need to refrigerate my cakes before they go bad.” He turned, actually starting to leave again. “Nice speaking with you again, Officer.”

 

“Yeah, you too, psycho,” Dean agreed, grumbling. The man nodded, not even looking back as he did so, before strolling toward the self-checkout area, humming to himself, a sound that trailed off as he got further and further from Dean. Dean watched him go, a little spacey, distracted and unsatisfied, and made a choice. He was going to follow the stranger, and then he was going to catch him, and bring him back to the precinct, welcomed as a hero, lifted onto the shoulders of his fellow officers with cheering and-- he was snapped out of his revelry when a cashier waved him forward to a register, smiling.

 

“I can take you right here, sir,” he said, Dean returning the smile and trying to act natural.

 

“Thanks,” he agreed, setting the bag of coffee and roll of paper towels he’d picked up onto the conveyor belt. Damn. He never even got his pie.

 

~*~

 

Dean just managed to get to his Impala as, across the lot, he saw the man climbing into an old, gold-colored junker. He was peeling out of the lot just as Dean was turning the ignition, on the man’s trail at a reasonable distance as they got out onto the main road. He got some cars in between them, managing to change lanes a time or two to make sure the stranger wouldn't get onto him. The gold Continental, which seemed to rock and roll like an old-fashioned pimpmobile, weaved down the roads under lights and through intersections like an animal, the skill with which it was driven compensating for the appearance.

 

They’d just pulled to a stop at a red light when Dean’s phone trilled loudly, and it was only then that Dean abruptly remembered his own _brother_ , the one he’d driven to Kroger in the car he was now driving after a murderer in, and the one who was now irritably calling him.

 

“Oh, shit,” Dean grumbled, fumbling for his phone. He answered hastily, putting it on speaker. “Hey, Sammy, I’m--”

 

“Gone!” Sam answered for him, demanding. _“Dude! Where the_ fuck _are you?!”_

 

“Listen, I know, but I have a really good excuse,” Dean defended. “I found him. The killer. He was at Kroger, man. I’m tailing him _right now._ ”

 

 _“The_ killer _was at_ Kroger,” Sam repeated slowly, coolly. _“You could come up with a better excuse than_ that, _asshole.”_

 

“I’m not kidding, Sammy!” Dean defended. “He’s in a gold Continental. He was in the pastry section, getting bread and cupcakes and cheesecake. It’s crazy, I know, but it’s true.”

 

 _“The serial killer, one that’s killed an_ assload _of people, the one who almost killed_ you, _was at Kroger buying_ bread _and_ cake, _on the day that you and I just happened to be there. Dude.”_

 

“Sam, I don’t know what to tell you. I wouldn’t make this up,” Dean insisted. “I couldn’t let him go, that would be stupid. I can redeem--”

 

 _“I’m not saying you would make this up,”_ Sam snapped, frustrated,ignoring Dean’s continuing, stumbling words, _“but come_ on, _Dean! You told Bobby and Benny that you didn’t see this guy for more than a couple of seconds! How can you even be sure that it’s him?!”_

 

“You don’t forget the guy who _murders someone in front of your face, kicks your ass into next week,_ then _takes you home to nurse you back to health_. Anyway, the composite looks just like him, and even if I’d never seen him before, it would be stupid not to try and follow him, on the offchance it could be the right guy.”

 

 _“All the composite is is a_ guess, _Dean! People thought this guy was_ dead! _There’s nothing to prove that he looks_ anything _like that composite except a little bit of hair that may not even have been his! For all you know, you’re chasing some poor sap that you’re gonna scare to death by arresting!_ Which, _by the way,”_ Sam snapped, _“you can’t do because Bobby punted you off the case for doing stupid shit like_ this!”

 

“Sammy,” Dean said, remembering what sealed the deal for him. “He mentioned it, Sammy. He mentioned the fight, he mentioned how he took me back to his house, he knows. It’s him, it can’t be anyone else.”

 

Sam groaned loudly. _“Then you can’t be serious doing this!”_ he barked, sounding almost angrier than before. _“You don’t have your gun or your badge! You can’t arrest him, or get him before he gets you-- he will_ kill _you, you and I both know he fucking can because he almost fucking_ did.”

 

“Oh, come on,” Dean dismissed. “Have a little faith in me. I can handle this, I’m not gonna get too close. He won’t even know I’m here until the other cops show up.”

 

“Please, _Dean,”_ Sam insisted. _“I’m asking you not to do this.”_

 

“Yeah, well, no promises, champ,” Dean dismissed. “Just go home. I’ll see you later.”

 

“Dean, _don’t--!_ ” He was already gone, though, hanging up and putting the phone back in the seat beside him, nothing on his mind but catching his killer.

 

The red light flipped to green about then, and Dean saw the Continental take a right, turning onto the main road of what Dean abruptly realized was a neighborhood. Heart pounding faster, Dean turned after him, thankfully obscured by a blue minivan between himself and the gold car. Relieved, he kept on after him, praying his temporary shield wouldn’t go peeling off before he could find himself a contingency plan.

 

Thankfully, just two streets further up, the Continental took a left onto another road, and the blue van followed, allowing Dean another few good moments of cover as he turned after them. After just another block both cars took another left, and as Dean followed, the two cars were already turning into two separate driveways, of two houses built right beside each other. The blue car pulled into a two-story, large and made of cream-colored brick, while the Continental pulled up in front of a one-story with dark red and brown brick, small and homey looking, so much so that Dean wanted to stare.

 

As he worked out where to park, where to keep himself somewhat hidden from obvious sight, he could see the murderer get out from his car at the same time as the driver from the blue car, and the woman from the blue car waved amicably to the killer, calling out a greeting with a smile as her three, no, four kids clambered from the car, waving eagerly at him as well. The man returned the wave and smile with his free hand, his other one toting his grocery bag full of pastries, his smile too kind for someone who’d spilt so much blood and brought so much pain. Dean parked behind one of the murderer’s neighbours, heading quietly over to his house to get a better look.

 

At first, he clung to the treeline, staying quiet and unobtrusive. But as he got closer, circumstance forced him nearer and nearer to the house. He made his way up as close as he could get without being seen, watching the murderer stroll inside without a care in the world. He watched as the man merely nudged open his front door, moving inside, and Dean noted that not only had the door been unlocked, but also _open,_ easy bait (almost ironically) for anyone that might’ve happened to bother and pay a visit to the man’s possessions. It was strange, especially for a man like him, someone who should have been constantly on the run for the kind of work he did. Dean wasn't complaining, though, especially not as he walked along the edge of the house, crouched low, sliding through the open door and into the house. It occurred to him, for a moment, that he was unarmed, completely vulnerable; that got pushed aside by his eagerness to find out exactly who that man was.

 

He heard gentle humming from the kitchen, as well as the sounds of moving feet and squeaking cabinets, the rustle of hands putting groceries away into the fridge and cupboards. Dean’s heart beat hard and fast, and Dean’s instinct almost made him worry that the man could hear the mere sound of his heart thumping loudly in his chest, as if it could reverberate out and into the air. He snuck closer, quiet, fascinated by the idea of a killer doing such everyday things. _Even murderers gotta eat,_ he figured, peeking silently around the corner of the kitchen wall.

 

“Would you like some tea, Officer, or do you prefer something with more kick to it?” the man’s voice asked abruptly, just as Dean’s head peeked around to look at him, and Dean jerked in a mix of shock and nerves, a litany of _fuckshitcrap_ running through his thoughts.

 

“I think I'll need something a little stronger,” Dean replied, stepping into the kitchen now that the jig was up. He buried his nerves and his uncertainty, praying that the murderer would keep up his strange behaviour and not try to hurt him.

 

“Coffee stronger, or whiskey stronger?”

 

“What do you think?” Dean answered simply. He scanned the kitchen, arms crossed. “Nice little setup you've got here. Especially for a psychopath.”

 

“I agree with you,” the man said easily, as if Dean hadn’t actually insulted him, reaching up and rifling through the cabinet above his head. “The cupboards are new, you know. The old ones were this _awful_ green color.” Dean could almost hear the man grimace. “I think the white’s a lot nicer in here. Opens the place up.” Dean hummed halfheartedly.

 

“Gotta wonder why you leave your door open, though. Never know what's gonna get in… bugs, strangers… although, I guess you don't have much to worry about. You’re a little scarier than anything out there.”

 

“I think that’s fairly debatable,” the man replied simply, pulling a large bottle of whiskey from the cabinet he was rifling through, setting it down and grabbing two mugs from a lower shelf. “I don’t really like snakes, you know. They’re terrible creatures.”

 

“Never been a big fan of ‘em myself,” Dean agreed, his brain simultaneously screaming: _why are you telling him this_? “Didn't know cold-blooded killers got scared, though. Seems a little contradictory, if you ask me.”

 

“I’m sure snakes _do_ get scared, sure,” the man said in confusing response, and Dean had to wonder if the man was taunting him with some kind of play-stupid act, ignoring the jab Dean had taken at him. “But I can’t imagine one being more afraid of me than I am of it. That’s what people always say, you know? That animals are more scared of us.” He shook his head, his voice genuine. “I can’t even begin to imagine that’s true most of the time.”

 

“But you've got to admit,” Dean pressed, “if an animal was gonna be afraid of anyone, they'd be afraid of you. You know, ‘cause you're a serial killer, and all.”

 

“I don’t think snakes would know how to differentiate that, actually, even if they _are_ very intelligent animals.” Dean gave him a look.

 

“You know what I mean, smartass. Either that, or you're stupider than I thought.”

 

The man finally turned, an actual pout on his face as he looked to Dean. “You don’t have to be _rude,_ you know,” he muttered. “You shouldn’t be rude to people that offer you alcohol.”

 

“You also shouldn't murder people,” Dean said, raising an eyebrow, although he'd be lying if the pout didn't make his heart twist a little.

 

The man huffed. “You’re not a very civil person, are you?” he mumbled lowly, turning back to the mugs as a kettle on the stovetop began to whistle with steam. He grabbed it, pouring the scalding water into a cup and slipping a tea bag in alongside, before popping the top off the whiskey and tipping that into the second mug he’d grabbed, completely unconcerned by how odd the notion was, putting liquor into a mug.

 

“I don't think it's very civil to run around offin’ people,” Dean replied easily.

 

The man ignored him. “Do you want a cookie as well?” he asked calmly. “I have chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin.”

 

“Oatmeal raisin sounds good,” Dean replied. “Thanks. You bake these yourself?”

 

“Mhm,” the killer said, opening a jar and taking out four cookies, setting them down on a little plate. “This morning, actually. They’re still fresh.” Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“Look at you. Little homemaker.”

 

“I suppose.” The man motioned at a small table tucked by the back door. “Go ahead and sit.”

 

“Sure,” Dean agreed. “Promise you won’t pull any punches?”

 

“If you’re going to continue to insinuate things about me rather than just return some polite conversation, I would ask that you go,” the man said coolly. “I have to run out to the pet store after this, and I’d rather not be held back from my errands today.”

 

“Yeah?” Dean said, instead of answering his accusation. “You got pets?”

 

“Yes,” the man replied easily, grabbing the two mugs and the plate and making his way over to the small table.

 

“Whatcha got?” Dean asked, taking off a piece of his cookie and sniffing it.

 

The killer shrugged. “Lots of them.”

 

“So tell me,” Dean encouraged. “I got time.”

 

The man shrugged, taking a seat in his chair before taking his mug and sipping at the tea. “Maybe later,” he replied easily. Dean shrugged.

 

“Fair enough. What’d’you need from the pet store?”

 

“Dog bones. And some rabbit food.” Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“Rabbits?”

 

“Yes.” Dean nodded.

 

“Well. Where are they?” He put a piece of the cookie in his mouth, tentative, taking a risk.

 

“Resting, probably,” the man replied, as Dean bit into what was probably the best cookie he’d ever had in his whole damn _life._

 

“These’re good,” he said, eyebrows raised. “These’re really good. Thanks.” He had another bite of cookie and went on. “I didn’t see a hutch out back.”

 

The man shrugged. “My last one was recently stolen. Thank you for reminding me that I need another.”

 

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Dean agreed. “You oughta make a list.”

 

“I had one. I lost it.”

 

“Make it on your phone,” Dean suggested. “You won’t lose your phone.” The killer shook his head.

 

“I don’t have a phone.” Dean scoffed.

 

“You gotta have somethin’. A burner or somethin’.”

 

“I only get burners when I need them,” the man replied, sipping at his tea again. “Otherwise, I don’t need one.” Dean sighed, shaking his head and taking another bite of cookie.

 

“To each their own, man. Although I dunno what I’d do without my phone. My whole life’s on there.”

 

The man frowned in return. “That seems like an exaggeration.” Dean chuckled.

 

“Alright, alright. You’ve got me. But most of it is.”

 

“Doesn’t that seem silly?” Dean shrugged.

 

“I guess. But everything’s backed up, you know, I got a contingency plan if som’m were to happen, so I--” Dean suddenly realised how strange it was that he was just sitting around with a murderer, shooting the shit, eating fucking cookies and drinking whiskey from a goddamn mug. What was he going to do, though? Leave? And ditch this opportunity to get close to the killer? Never. So he pushed those thoughts away and forged ahead, starting in on his second cookie.

 

The man cocked his head curiously, like some kind of baby bird, big blue eyes locked on Dean. “So you... what?”

 

“So I have my information someplace,” Dean finished. “You know, phone numbers. Notes, documents, blah blah blah. All that important stuff.” The man nodded, contemplative.

 

“Understandable… I suppose.”

 

“Not too big on technology, huh?”

 

“You could assume that.”

 

“I think it’s a little more than an assumption.”

 

“If you can’t be totally sure, then doesn’t that make it an assumption by default?” the man questioned, brows rising.

 

“I’d call it an educated guess,” Dean shrugged.

 

The murderer’s brows raised even higher. “An educated guess?” he repeated, setting his chin in one hand. “Does that make me an experiment, Officer?”

 

Dean couldn’t help but smirk, just a little. “That’s debatable,” he hummed, before shaking his head. “Nah. I don’t blame you for livin’ analog; I used to be the same way, before my kid brother showed me the light.”

 

The man nodded slowly. “Are you implying that I should also see this… ‘light’?” he questioned curiously.

 

“Course not. You’re welcome to live in the dark ages, if that’s what you want,” he teased. The man shrugged in response, taking another bite of his cookie, speaking around the mouthful.

 

“I have a television, I guess.”

 

“So you’re not completely out of it,” Dean said. “Wha’d’you watch?”

 

“Nothing much,” the man sighed once he’d swallowed the bite from his cookie. “I like the home network. You know, the one where they sell all the tiny houses and fix up old ones. Stuff like that.” Dean nodded.

 

“I love shit like that. I’ve always wanted to be one ‘a those people with the nice house I fixed up myself. Seems like a rewarding pasttime.” The man frowned at him.

 

“You’d like a nice house?” he asked of Dean’s statement, interested. “Why?” Dean shrugged.

 

“I dunno. You tryn’a analyse me?”

 

The man shrugged this time. “I don’t understand why anyone would spend an exuberant amount of money on a house,” he said simply. “All it’s for is sleeping in, and keeping your possessions in. Why bother to make it fancier than that?”

 

“I don’t want fancy. I want something nice. Something I did myself, something I can be proud of. It doesn’t have to be fancy, as long as the pipes don’t creak and the roof doesn’t leak,” he shrugged.

 

The man nodded. “I can agree with that,” he hummed. “But the question still stands. I don’t understand why _anyone_ would bother with extravagance. It’s just so… unnecessary.”

 

“Then what are you doing here?” Dean asked, gesturing with the last morsel of his cookie at the house. The man blinked at him, actually looking confused.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“In this house. If you think it’s so extravagant, why not just live someplace else? In your car or som’m?” The man’s frown deepened.

“I couldn’t keep my pets in my car with me,” he mumbled, as if Dean’s suggestion was completely insane. “That would be inhumane.”

 

“See?” Dean asked. “Not so crazy after all.” The man shrugged, fiddling with the edge of the tablecloth.

 

“I would have been fine with something smaller than this,” he said. “I didn’t pick this house, anyway. It’s just what Naomi said would be a good idea.”

 

“Yeah?” Dean asked casually. “Naomi a friend of yours?”

 

The man, however, suddenly appeared distracted, his eyes flitting over Dean’s head, where a clock was set on the wall. He gave a little curse, quickly getting up, wiping his hands off on a napkin. “It’s already past time for me to have gone out,” he said, shaking his head, seeming to have already completely forgotten that he and Dean were having a conversation, and a question he’d been asked still waited, unanswered. “I need to go now.”

 

“Hey,” Dean said. “Why don’t you bring me along? I can be your living list,” he suggested. “Help you remember stuff, help you carry it around.” The man blinked at him.

 

“Why?” he asked anyway. “I remember what I need. I’ve always done my shopping alone before.” Dean shrugged.

 

“So maybe it’s time for a change, huh?” he suggested, almost flirtatious accidentally.

 

“A… change?” The man said slowly, as if the words were bitter coming off his lips.

 

“Sure,” Dean encouraged. “Try bringing me along with you. See how you feel, huh?” The man just frowned a little deeper.

 

“I… suppose….”

 

“Alright,” Dean grinned, victorious. “Then let’s go.”

 

The man nodded, still looking apprehensive about the whole idea. However, he just adjusted his coat, motioning for Dean to follow him to the front door. Dean followed easily, eager for this new path that would allow him to pursue his case.

 

The man held the front door open for Dean as they left, an oddly kind gesture of him, but upon following Dean out Dean realized the man, once again, just left his door unlocked, and this time the door sat wide, wide open, as if eagerly waiting for people to come in and raid its insides.

 

“Don’t you wanna close that?” Dean asked. “At least? What if your dog gets out?” The man blinked at him.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You don’t want your dog to run off. What if something happened to him?” The man just shrugged.

 

“My dogs won’t run away,” he said easily, calmly confident. Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“Alright, then,” he agreed. “What kinda dogs are they?”

 

“We’re already late,” the man insisted tiredly, walking to the driver’s side of his car. “Hurry, please.” Dean decided not to force the issue, following him to his car.

 

“Can I get your name, at least?” he asked. “Your full name?”

 

“Why?”

 

“‘Cause I need to know what to call you,” Dean replied drolly, the “duh” not quite there but heavily implied.

 

“Up until now, you’ve just called me a serial killer,” the man replied smoothly, but underneath it was more than just a hint of sarcasm, which was almost surprising with how the man had previously acted, almost too innocent for what he really was, underneath the exterior.

 

“Oh, so you’re gonna be a smartass, huh?” Dean asked. “Maybe if you don’t like that name, you should offer me an alternative.”

 

“And you want that to be my name.”

 

“Unless you want me to make one up for you, yeah.”

 

“Can we just get going now, please?” Dean held up his hands.

 

“I ain’t stopping you,” he replied, climbing into the passenger seat.

 

The man said nothing else, climbing into the driver’s side and starting the car, peeling out of the driveway and onto the road, seatbelt-less as they left the house. Dean didn't admonish him, though he did click his own seat belt into place in case the stranger decided to do something ridiculous.

 

The man’s radio weakly sung classical music into the car, the sound a little off-putting but also somewhat calming. The air conditioner didn’t work, but the windows were rolled all the way down, and the afternoon air and moving car provided enough wind to keep the car cool. The breeze ruffled Dean’s short hair, tousling through it like fingers.

 

“I saw your car back when we met,” the man said casually, easy-going. “What kind of car is it?”

 

“‘67 Impala,” Dean answered. “She’s my baby.”

 

The man wrinkled his nose. “Your… baby?” Dean shrugged.

 

“Sure. She's like my kid, I guess; I take care of her, you know, fix her up when som’m busts…”

 

“Why don’t you just get a more recent model of car?” Dean scoffed.

 

“Uh uh. Those are computers with a car built around ‘em.” He shook his head. “I like a car where I can get in there, get to work, and get it fixed myself. These new cars, you can’t do that unless you got a coding degree.”

 

“I see.” Dean nodded.

 

“I could go on about shit like this for hours,” he admitted. “It’s one ‘a those things I nerd out about big time.”

 

“What? About cars?” Dean hummed in agreement.

 

“Yeah. That, and, like, Lord of the Rings. Love that shit.”

 

“‘Lord of the Rings’?” the man repeated, sounding confused. “What’s that?” Dean’s jaw dropped.

 

“You don’t know what Lord of the Rings is?” he asked, scandalised. “How don’t you know what Lord of the Rings is? How old are you?”

 

The man frowned. “I don’t see how my age has anything to do with this,” he complained. Dean chuckled.

 

“The younger you are, the less into it you were. I was a kid when Lord of the Rings was a big deal, and my dad always loved it, so it was kinda a family thing.”

 

“I’m not sure that theory is accurate,” the man replied after a moment. “I’m not much younger than you are, Officer.”

 

“Yeah? How old do you reckon I am?”

 

“You’re twenty-six,” the man replied simply. “I looked at your driver’s license, back when we met the first time.”

 

“Nosy,” Dean scoffed. “At least buy me dinner first, huh?”

 

“I don’t like to go out for dinner. It’s too noisy.” Dean bobbed his head from side to side in understanding.

 

“Fair enough.”

 

“I think so,” the man hummed, as he pulled into a parking space outside the local Petco. “We’re here,” he said easily, stopping the car and slipping out of it. He started for the building without even waiting for Dean to get out, obviously under the (correct) impression that Dean would follow him there.

 

With a huff, Dean did indeed follow, catching up with the other man’s long strides just as he slid past the store’s automatic doors. “Can’t waste a second there, can ya’, champ?” he asked dryly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as the man just responded with a serious shake of his head.

 

“I’m on a tight schedule,” Nameless replied.

 

Dean raised his brows. “That so?” he asked. “Why?”

 

“Because my schedule said I was supposed to be here at two-thirty, and it’s two thirty-eight,” the man said, grabbing a small handbasket as they strode past the registers up front. “Which means that now the entirety of my day will be offset.”

 

“It’s that big of a deal to you?” Dean asked, almost scoffing at the notion. The man replied with a frustrated look.

 

“I don’t see the problem with it,” he insisted, taking a sharp left into the fourth row of assorted pet foods, wandering down the row with an ease that came from visiting someplace enough to know where everything would always be. Dean just trailed after him as the man continued, seeming terse now. “Being on time is one of the most important things to be aware of,” he insisted, stopping by the somewhat meager selection of rabbit foods.

 

“Why do you think so, then? Eight minutes ain’t really that big of a deal, in the long run.”

 

“Eight minutes is the difference between completing a job and being arrested, Officer,” the man replied easily, his words holding a slight tone to them that made their shared atmosphere just a little chillier with the addressment of the real situation at hand. “In your position, I’d think eight minutes would make just as much of a difference, don’t you?”

 

Dean pursed his lips, slightly narrowed eyes following the man for a moment as said man grabbed a bag of rabbit food, slipping it into his basket before turning on his heel and starting down the aisle again, toward the end. Dean didn’t follow for a moment, his thoughts churning, but as the man turned the corner at the end of the row, Dean’s brain sharply reminded him that he needed to follow the man, no matter how much Dean really just needed to sit and _think._

 

Dean didn’t speed after the man, but he put a little hurry in his steps, twisting around the same corner, eyes finding the killer in the next aisle, picking out an assorted variety of dog bones from the shelves they were set on. “You’re a really fuckin’ strange guy, you know that?” he muttered at the man as he reached him, crossing his arms. The man didn’t even really spare him a glance, as he appeared to weigh two different types of dog bones in his hands.

 

“Do you think the dogs would like the beef bones more, or the turkey bones?” the man asked simply, as if their conversation’s focus had never turned from their somewhat impromptu shopping trip. “I think the turkey ones are probably healthier, but the beef ones are a lot bigger….” Dean shrugged.

 

“Get pig ears,” he suggested. “My ex’s dog loved those. They’re pretty healthy. Dirt cheap, too.”

 

“Really?” the man asked, tilting his head curiously, looking at Dean for the first time in the past few minutes. “I’ve never thought of that.”

 

“Yeah, it’s a little weird,” Dean agreed, grabbing a bag from the nearby shelf. “When he first broke ‘em out, I had no idea what they were,” he laughed. “You should give ‘em a shot, though, they’re a big hit with dogs.” He nodded, considering, before putting the bones down and taking the pig’s ears instead.

 

“Thank you,” he offered Dean, as he took the bag of pig’s ears and put them in the basket with the rabbit food.

 

“No problem,” Dean agreed. “So what kinda dogs you got?”

 

“I want to look at the hamsters,” the man said abruptly, instead of answering, already turning on his heel and heading steadfastly in the direction of the small mammals, leaving Dean easily in his (somewhat frustrated) dust. He followed, like a puppy, completely confused and wondering if, at any point, the stranger had given him a straight answer.

 

He only caught up to the other man just as a smiling employee carefully handed off a tiny, gray fluff-ball into the killer’s hands, somehow infinitely tender as he cupped the small hamster in his fingers, looking almost amazed at the mere existence of the small animal. “I like this one,” he said simply, not even looking at Dean as the officer came up beside him, as if he’d merely sensed Dean’s presence coming close. “She’s soft.”

 

 

“Yeah, she’s, uh...really som’m,” Dean agreed. “You got enough room for this little gal? ‘Tween your rabbits and your dogs and your cats, don’t ya think it might get a little cramped in your… where was it you keep ‘em?”

 

“She’s a hamster,” the man insisted, again without giving Dean a straight answer to his insistent question. “She doesn’t need much room, she just needs to be cared for.” Dean sighed.

 

“Fair enough, I guess,” he agreed, looking around at the other hamsters in their cages. “Whatcha gonna name ‘er?”

 

The man just shrugged, carefully handing the hamster back to the employee as his eyes scanned over the small cages again, eyes examining the other hamsters running and roaming around in their containment. “She needs friends,” he insisted after a short moment. “Otherwise she’ll get lonely.” Dean chuckled, unable to fault his logic.

 

“Well, you’re the expert,” he agreed. “You already got a cage for’em?”

 

“No,” the man replied simply. “I’ll get things for them while I’m here.”

 

“So this is your first Guinea pig?” Dean asked, watching him watch the hamsters.

 

The man shook his head. “Just my first hamster,” he replied, as he pointed out another hamster to the assistant, a brown one bigger and fatter than the rest

 

“Mm,” Dean replied, watching carefully. “Whatcha gonna name ‘em?”

 

Once again, the man just shrugged. “I’ll figure it out later,” he said, pointing out another one to the woman, even smaller than the other two, this hamster bright white with a big, twitchy nose. Dean couldn't help but find the little guy cute, and some kind of weird compulsion made him extend a hand to hold one.

 

“Could I see the, uh, the little black one? Up in the corner, the little…” The attendant pointed at it, and Dean nodded. “Yeah. That one.”

 

The man quirked his brows curiously as the woman handed Dean the hamster, the small thing chittering away nervously in his much bigger hands, beady eyes locking on his face as if in questioning.

 

“What?” Dean asked, chuckling. “What’s that look for? Are you two in cahoots?”

 

The man looked momentarily started. “Is that a _word?”_ he questioned, seeming taken aback by the idea that such an odd word could be real.

 

“Cahoots? Yeah, it is. You’ve never heard that word before?”

 

“No. Since when has it existed?” the man demanded, narrowing his eyes, as if Dean had revealed some conspiracy to him rather than just a _word._

 

“Since forever, dude,” Dean chuckled. “It’s a fun one, huh?”

 

“I don’t believe that that word has been around forever,” the man insisted in response, crossing his arms.

 

“Well, surprise,” Dean replied. “Now, come on. Why’re you givin’ me that look? Ain’t you ever seen a officer of the law holding a hamster before?” he teased, smiling.

 

“No, I haven’t, actually,” the man replied easily. “Usually the officers I see are on _duty.”_ He wrinkled his nose. “Are you actually going to get her?”

 

“Maybe so,” Dean shrugged.

 

“Have _you_ ever had a hamster?” Dean shook his head.

 

“I had a frog when I was a kid. And my family had a dog when I was little; like, baby little,” he said. “Where'd you get all your animals from?”

 

“That’s a long story,” the man replied simply, once again. “Are you going to get the hamster or not, Dean?” Dean huffed.

 

“I'll get her if you get one too,” he agreed. “Alright?”

 

“I’m already getting three, Dean,” the man insisted, turning to the woman as Dean recognized that the man had called him by his actual name, not just once, but twice in a row. Dean sighed, reminding himself to ask the stranger his name (again).

 

“That's fair,” he agreed. “Alright, then, I guess you're comin’ with me.” He looked into the tiny, beady eyes of the little hamster, hoping they had some kind of an understanding between them. The hamster looked as grudging about the whole business as Dean did; _two of a kind,_ he thought. If he was going to have a hamster, this was the one for him.

 

“I’m going to go get the stuff for my hamsters,” the man said, as the woman got together two take-home boxes for the animals. “And then I’ll come retrieve them.” Dean nodded.

 

“I'll go with you,” he said. “I got no idea where to start with this pet shit.”

 

The man almost looked offended. “It’s not _shit,”_ he muttered, turning and heading toward the small mammals aisle. Dean huffed, pursuing him.

 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he argued. “I just meant, like, stuff. You know.” He shoulder-checked an aisle, cursing softly in pain before forging on after the near-stranger.

 

“Why wouldn’t you say it like you meant it, then?” the man questioned, pressing on.

 

“Listen, I misspoke, okay? I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s shit, I promise, alright?” The man huffed.

 

“Okay,” he said simply, with no indication of if it truly was or not. He stopped short by the hamster stuff, pointing to the row of different kinds of cages they had. “You need a cage for her,” he said. “And she needs things she can climb and play on.” Dean picked up a hamster ball, turning it over in his hand.

 

“So, like this thing?” he suggested. “This looks like fun, huh? I’d want one’a these if I was a little hamster.” The man frowned.

 

“But you’re not a little hamster,” he said.

 

“But if I _was_ a little hamster-- you know, nevermind.” The man shrugged.

 

“Okay,” he said, turning back to the cages and picking one out for himself that was at least double the size of Dean’s. “I like this one.”Dean chuckled.

 

“Try’n’a one-up my hamster house, huh?” he teased, going for a larger size.

 

“I have three hamsters, Dean,” the man insisted in reply. “And you only have one.” Dean shrugged.

 

“That’s fair, I guess,” he agreed. “Don’t they need, like, mulch? Or som’m to walk on?”

 

“Wood shavings, Dean.”

 

“Wood shavings,” Dean repeated. “Alright. You got it.”

 

“And then they need food, too, and a water bottle for the cage. Ooh,” the man said, almost excitedly, “and hamster balls to exercise in.”

 

Dean gestured with the one he'd picked up earlier. “Got that one covered.”

 

“Good,” the man nodded, grabbing a couple of his own. “I need one for each of them, so they can all run around at once.” Dean chuckled.

 

“You’re gonna be trippin’ over those little guys,” he teased.

 

“Some of us know how to look where we’re walking,” the man replied smoothly, easily in response.

 

“Ouch,” Dean laughed, gathering up food and water bottles and bags of mulch, carrying them all in his overladen arms. The man put his items in his own basket as well, looking curiously over the rest of the small mammal accessories.

 

“I think that covers it, really.” Dean nodded.

 

“So what's with all the pets? You just like animals, or?” he asked as they made their way over to pick up their new acquisitions.

 

“They’re easy companions to have,” the man replied simply. “They ask for nothing more than food, shelter, and affection, and they’re loyal to you for that.” He paused, considering. “Plus, I like petting them.” Dean shrugged.

 

“Sounds good to me,” he agreed. “Definitely easier to get along with than most people, huh?”

 

“You could say that, I guess.”

 

“You guess?” Dean asked, taking his hamster box from the woman in the Small Mammals section.

 

“That’s what I said,” the man replied, nodding his thanks as he took his own hamster boxes from the woman. “I believe I’m ready now.”

 

“Awesome,” Dean agreed, heading up to the front of the store, the black hamster in his carrying box chirping and running from side to side. He lifted it up to eye level to investigate further. “Uh, dude? You think she's supposed to be doin’ that?” The man shrugged, setting his things on the conveyor belt for checkout.

 

“I don't imagine so. But I honestly don't know,” the man replied, just as easily as anything. “Oh,” he said, huffing. “Drat. I forgot something.” He looked up at Dean. “Wait here a moment, please.”

 

“Sure,” Dean agreed, before remembering that he was supposed to be following this guy, cause he was, you know, a murderer?

 

“Thanks,” the man said easily, however, before he strode off without giving Dean any time to make any more of a decision behind it. Dean just sighed, turning back to the conveyor belt, just in time for a hand to come down on his shoulder, nearly scaring the shit out of him.

 

“Interestin’ choice of hangout, brother,” came Benny’s long, southern drawl. Half relieved to see his partner, and half afraid he'd catch him whittling away the hours with a serial killer, Dean turned and smiled.

 

“Hey, Benny,” he greeted easily. “I could say the same to you. Whatcha been up to?”

 

“Oh, you know,” Benny said smoothly, crossing his arms. “Trying to find _you.”_

 

“Wha'd'you mean?” Dean asked, earnestly confused.

 

“Sam called me, idiot. Told me you were out chasin’ murderers.”

 

“Sam--” Dean started, then huffed, for all the world like a whiny child. “I’m not chasing anybody, Benny. I’m fine. How’d you find me here, anyways? I haven’t talked to Sam since I left the Kroger.”

 

Benny rolled his eyes. “I traced your cell, idiot. Jus’ because it’s on silent don’t mean I can’t find it.”

 

“You're nosy, you know that?” Dean asked, pointing an accusatory finger at his partner.

 

Benny narrowed his eyes. “An’ _you’re_ fuckin’ _stupid.”_

 

“What, so you'd turn down the opportunity to tail a serial killer? That's what you're tellin’ me?”

 

“You got kicked off this case, Winchester! You ain’t licensed to be doin’ this shit right now!” Dean rolled his eyes.

 

“So I'm just supposed to pass this shit up? Benny, it's fate. I was just mindin’ my own business, and then I see this guy, at the fuckin’ supermarket. And I'm just supposed to go home, and let him walk away? No. Nuh uh.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Benny snapped, crossing his arms. “Then where is he, huh? Why the fuck are you at a _Petco?”_

 

Dean crossed his arms, shuffled a little in place, then said, “Listen. He's in the back, he's goin’ to get somethin’, but I know he's comin’ back ‘cause he left the hamsters here, and for some fucked up reason he's really wild about the little guys.”

 

“Uh… sir?” the cashier piped up abruptly, eyes big on the two of them, looking uncomfortable as she got their attention. “Your, um, your… _companion_.. he, uh, left, actually.” She jerked a thumb at the register behind her as Dean stared at her in bewilderment. “He asked to have his things moved to the register over here while you two talked, and he, um, he walked out. Just now.” Dean didn't have time to say anything, much less respond to Benny’s look of “I told you so,” running out of the pet store after the stranger. It was already too late, however; the man he’d been with was gone, along with the gold Continental, quick as a flash, as if the man and his car had never really been there at all.

 

“Fuck,” Dean hissed, hearing Benny cluck his tongue as he came up behind Dean.

 

“You better have a good explanation for all this,” Benny muttered, sighing as he pulled his cruiser keys from his pocket. “C’mon. We’re going to see Bobby.”

 

“But Benny--”

 

“No buts, Winchester,” Benny snapped. “C’mon. Now.”

 

“Listen, I'm already in enough trouble, if I--”

 

 _“Now.”_ Dean huffed, then relented.

 

“Alright, alright. Now.”

 

“Sir!” the cashier from before suddenly called, now standing in the doorway. “Are you, uh, are you still going to take your hamster?” Benny raised his brows.

 

“You’re gettin’ a _hamster?”_ Dean looked back and forth between Benny and the little rodent.

 

“Fuck you,” he said finally, “I need some company.”

 

“And so you got a _hamster.”_

 

“So I got a hamster.”

 

Benny huffed. “Go get it, then, hurry the fuck up,” he snapped. “We’re goin’ in two.”

 

“Aye aye, boss,” Dean agreed, heading back to the checkout queue.

 

The cashier led him back, seeming on edge as she checked him out, ringing him up in silence. The hamster squeaked and ran around in its box, chittering incessantly. Dean kept a close eye on her, smiling softly in a way that he prayed dearly would be reassuring.

 

“That’ll be thirty-nine fifty-two,” she mumbled as she rang him up, bagging everything except the hamster in a couple of plastic sacks.

 

“You got it,” Dean agreed, handing her his card. She took it, quickly running it and getting his receipt, handing the card back and shoving the receipt into one of the bags. He gathered them up, smiled, and told her to have a good day, to which she replied with a hasty mumble of “youtoobye.”

 

Benny was still waiting on the curb when Dean got out, and he snorted when he saw the hamster’s carrying box, rolling his eyes. “A damn hamster,” he said. “You actually got a damn hamster.”

 

 _“Yeah,_ Benny, I actually _got_ the hamster,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “Can we go now?” Benny nodded.

 

“Let’s,” he said, dragging his keys from his pockets and starting toward the car, Dean in town, who of which had only one thought on his mind: _What do I do now?_

 

~*~

 

“You really are thick’n the head, boy, you know that?” Bobby snapped as Dean stood before his desk for the second time in two weeks, Benny loitering nearby, quiet as Bobby talked to Dean.

 

“I told ya’ that you were off this case,” Bobby continued, glaring at Dean, “and what do you do? Go chasin’ after the fuckin’ guy that whooped your stupid ass last time.” Dean huffed.

 

“What was I gonna do, just watch him get away?” he demanded. “I'm not gonna sit on my ass just because you kicked me off the case.”

 

“Oh yes you fuckin’ will,” Bobby snapped. “Who the _fuck_ do you think you are, actin’ like you get to make the fuckin’ decisions around here? When I give you an order, I expect you to fuckin’ _follow it.”_

 

“Sir, this one just fell into my lap, and I didn’t feel right just ignoring--”

 

“Did I _ask_ how _you felt?”_ Dean looked down, hangdog but still stubborn.

 

“No, sir, but--”

 

“Why didn’t you try callin’ Benny, huh?” Bobby snapped. “Or Joe, or Garth, or Ash, or _any-fuckin’-body_ else that’s allowed to be workin’ that could’a taken care’a this guy. _Why?”_

 

“Cause I was there, and if I'd waited he coulda gotten away. And I'd rather be in trouble with you with a decent lead than bumbling around without pissing anybody off. Sir.”

 

Bobby narrowed his eyes. “You say you got a fuckin’ lead?” he snapped. “Then what’s this fuckin’ lead’a yours?”

 

“I know where he lives,” Dean preened. “His address and everything. I could take you there right now.”

 

Bobby seemed fairly unconvinced. “You’re tellin’ me this guy’s got a solid place where he’s livin’,” he stated flatly. “A place you jus’ happened to find.”

 

“1763 Apis Way,” Dean replied smugly. “He drives a gold Continental with no plates. Benny saw it for himself.”

 

Benny huffed as they looked to him. “I saw _you_ buyin’ a hamster in a goddamn Petco,” he muttered, before sighing. “But yeah, I thought I saw some old, gold pimp-mobile when I was pullin’ into the parkin’ lot.”

 

“At’ll be him,” Dean agreed. “I c’n show you his house right now. A little split-level shoebox with a carport and a fenced in yard. He's a regular Holly Homemaker.”

 

Bobby looked even more disbelieving. “So you want me to believe that there’s a _Martha Stewart_ serial killer,” he stated flatly, “jus’ livin’ in some middle-class neighborhood and goin’ to fuckin’ Petcos with you.”

 

“Bobby, I know it sounds crazy, but I'm serious,” Dean defended. “Benny saw him at the Petco. There's video of him standing in there, lookin’ at fucking hamsters and cages and food and shit.”

 

“I saw some guy walkin’ away from you when I came in,” Benny said, brow rising. “You’re telling me he was the guy we’ve been lookin’ for?” Dean nodded.

 

“Don't know his full name,” he replied, “‘n there's no point in runnin’ his card, won't get you anywhere. But that's him.”

 

Benny huffed, and shared a long look with Bobby Dean couldn’t read before he straightened up off of the wall. “Gimme the address again,” Benny grunted at Dean, pulling out his notebook and pen.

 

“1763 Apis Way,” Dean answered easily.

 

Benny wrote it down and nodded, clicking his pen closed. “I’ll be back,” he drawled, shoving the pen away and leaving the office, leaving Dean alone with a still fairly irate Bobby. Dean gave him a sheepish smile.

 

“Guessing this means I'm still--”

 

“In an assload of trouble?” Bobby snapped. _“Oh_ yeah. This one ain’t slidin’.” Dean sighed.

 

“I just wanted to catch this guy, Bobby,” Dean replied simply. “I know I messed up, but we’re so close, this is such a good lead--”

 

“If it even follows through to anythin’,” Bobby snapped, cutting him off easily. “You really ‘spect me to just get on board with your story about some serial killer that bakes cookies and raises hamsters? ‘Scuse me if I don’t buy it.”

 

“I don't blame you,” Dean agreed. “Couldn't believe it myself. Guess we’ll find out when Benny gets back…”

 

“Guess we will,” Bobby said flatly. “For now, you’re gonna call your damn brother back and tell’em you ain’t dead in some ditch somewhere.”

 

“Yeah, alright,” Dean agreed, pulling out his phone. He hit the call button on the long notification collection of Sam’s missed calls, and he barely had the phone to his ear when Sam was already picking up, sounding irritable overall, though Dean could hear the real worry in his voice.

 

 _“What the_ hell, _Dean?”_ Sam snapped angrily. _“I called you a million fucking times! What the_ fuck _was_ that?”

 

“I'm sorry,” Dean sighed. “But listen, Sammy, I got the best fuckin’ lead--”

 

 _“You could have been_ dead, asshole!”

 

“Well, ain't you lucky I’m not,” Dean grumbled.

 

 _“I should kick your ass,”_ Sam snapped. _“You idiot.”_

 

“Sam, I'm sorry, but it was so fucking weird and I couldn't just pass up--” Dean replied, eager to get back in good standing with Sam.

 

 _“Oh yes you could’ve fucking passed it up!”_ Sam snapped. _“You could have_ died!”

 

“But I didn't, Sam, so it doesn't matter,” Dean replied, a little terse. “Anyway, you wouldn't believe the shit I found out about this guy. It's crazy, dude.”

 

 _“What?”_ Sam asked, still sounding terse behind a little bit of curiosity that couldn’t have been avoided. _“What do you mean?”_ Dean, glad he had him on the hook, grinned.

 

“He's like Snow White, man,” he replied. “He lives in this little house on Apis Way, he's got, like, seven Guinea pigs, and all these fucking pets--”

 

 _“Oh my_ god,” Sam snapped. _“Dean, are you fucking_ high? _How did you even_ get _high? Has this whole thing been some stupid acid trip or something?”_

 

“I'm not an idiot, Sam,” Dean huffed, “I'm dead fucking serious. Benny is on his way to that house right now to see for himself.”

 

 _“You can’t be serious, Dean, you can’t be_ actually _serious. You’re telling me that--”_

 

“It's fine, Sammy, Benny will be fine. Bobby sent him himself, I'm sure he had knew to send him with some backup. It ain't his first rodeo, ya know.”

 

 _“I’m not saying Benny won’t be_ safe,” Sam scoffed. _“I’m saying that you sound_ ridiculous. _What kind of serial killer has a_ house _and_ pets?”

 

“That's what I'm sayin’, man! He's got hamsters! Three hamsters! He bought them today, like, right in front of me!” Dean replied enthusiastically, standing to duck out into the hall. “But I know he's the guy, Sam. I swear.”

 

_“Then he’s, what? Just totally batshit?”_

 

“Yes,” Dean agreed. “Exactly. That's the weird part.”

 

 _“I mean… you’re sure it’s not some trick?”_ Sam insisted. _“He could be trying to fool you into thinking you’ve got some kind of high ground here.”_

 

“It doesn't feel that way,” Dean replied. “I've been at this long enough to know when someone’s fucking with me, but this guy seems too earnest for that.”

 

 _“Dean, there’s just_ no _way. He’s gotta be playing you.”_

 

“I dunno, Sam. I’m kinda buyin’ it. I mean, doesn't make him any less of a serial killer, but….”

 

 _“Can’t say it won’t change up how you guys approach the situation,”_ Sam muttered, and Dean nodded, even though Sam couldn’t see the action. _“So this guy could just be killing because he’s crazy? Because he doesn’t know any better?”_

 

“Could be,” Dean sighed. “‘Course, we can't know for sure yet, but it’ll be an angle we’d haft’a think over, ‘specially ‘cause _yeah,_ this guy’s insane, Sammy. But he’s still smart as hell. At least, he’s smart enough to have run around for years murderin’ people, then been able to dodge us so easy for so long.”

 

 _“Yeah,”_ Sam said, and Dean could almost hear him nodding. _“I guess no matter what he’s like, it’s just important that you guys catch him and put him away.”_ Something in Dean catches for just a second, and he half-pauses.

 

“Right,” he says finally. “Catch him ‘n put him away.”

 

 _“Right?”_ Sam asked. _“Or… wait. Is this guy gonna be… you know?”_

 

“Oh, I don't… I mean, probably… no. Prob’ly not,” Dean dismissed, half for the sake of his own sanity and conscience.

 

_“You don’t sound so sure about that.”_

 

“Nah, he's got-- he'll plead the fifth. For sure,” Dean insisted. “He's gotta have grounds for that.

He's a weird little dude.”

 

_“And if he doesn’t? Then what?”_

 

“Well, lucky for us, we won't have to worry about that,” Dean replied easily. “Anyway, Sam, it's my job to find the criminals and get ‘em somewhere where they can't hurt anyone anymore. What happens after that isn't up to me. That ain't my business.”

 

 _“Yeah, I guess,”_ Sam said, just as Dean saw Benny striding down the hall again, scowl on his face.

 

“Benny’s comin’ back,” Dean said hastily, “I gotta go. I'll see you around.”

 

_“Please call me back later, Dean. Let me know everything’s going okay.”_

 

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Just don't worry ‘bout me too much, you'll strain yourself, huh?” he teased, smirking.

 

 _“Yeah, yeah, you asshole.”_ Dean hummed, satisfied, and said a final goodbye before hanging up with a beep and slipping his phone back into his pocket, heading over to intercept Benny.

 

“So? Was I right, or was I right?”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Benny grunted. “The house’s abandoned now.”

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dean replied shortly. “Are you sure? You looked everywhere? There's gotta be something--”

 

“Everythin’s gone, Dean. Ain’t nobody there. Somebody _was_ there, but now there’s nothin’.” Dean huffed.

 

“Of course,” he grumbled. “Well, least I ain't crazy.”

 

“Yeah, you ain’t crazy,” Benny muttered, stalking over to Bobby’s door. “You’re just a dumb shit.” Dean rolled his eyes, trying to predict just how Bobby would react to the less-than-fortunate news that they'd lost their perp.

 

He reacted just about as well as one could expect, cursing angrily and getting up from his swivel chair, pacing for a couple of minutes to blow off his irritation before turning to them, still a little red-faced. “I want this asshole found,” he hissed. “You two fuckin’ understand me?”

 

“Yessir, Officer Singer,” Dean agreed, obedient but still a little cowed. “I'll take Benny and we’ll head to his house right now, see if there's anything we can find between us. Meantime, I can call the city and get traffic footage pulled.” He stood up, eyeing the badge on Bobby’s desk-- his badge-- but not saying anything.

 

Bobby pursed his lips in return, glaring at Dean for a long minute before he spoke again. “LaFitte, get out,” he snapped. “I need’ta talk to Winchester alone.”

 

“Yessir,” Benny agreed, giving Dean a quick “Good luck” glance before slipping out into the hallway.

 

Bobby watched him go before looking to Dean with a glare.”I’m still in charge around here, you fuckin’ got that?” he snapped seriously.

 

“Yessir,” Dean agreed. “Sorry, sir.”

 

“That means I make the damn rules, boy, _all_ the damn rules, an’ you follow’em.”

 

“Yessir. I understand,” he nodded, cowed.

 

 _“Whatever_ I decide the rules are,” he said firmly, “no matter what, you follow’em. Even if you don’t like’em or you don’t agree with’em, or you don’t think they’re the right thing to be doin’, you _follow the rules.”_ Dean nodded again.

 

“I understand, sir.”

 

“I make all the calls, and you don’t make any without consultin’ me first.”

 

“Yessir.”

 

“And if you _ever_ break my rules again,” Bobby hissed seriously, “and do somethin’ as momentously and irritatin’ly stupid as you did two weeks ago, you’ll be off this force for as long as I damn well think you should be, and that’ll start anywhere from three months probation and up. You got that, Winchester?”

 

“Yes, Captain Singer,” Dean agreed, hiding his impatience.

 

“You better,” Bobby said, walking back around his desk to his chair. “Take your shit,” he said. “I want this asshole found _now._ Before he hurts someone else.” Dean nodded, eagerly snatching up his badge and gun. He clipped one to his belt and wrapped the holster of the other around himself, the weights by his sides comforting and familiar.

 

“Thank you, sir,” he said hastily, heading out already to grab Benny and ship off.

 

“And Winchester,” Bobby called flatly after him.

 

“Yessir?”

 

“Don’t get your stupid ass beat like last time,” Bobby said coolly, and Dean knew he was dismissed.

 

“No worries,” Dean smirked, his confidence returning as he headed down the hall.

 

Benny was waiting at the end of the hall, and he raised his brows when Dean came toward him. “So?” he asked. Dean flashed him his badge, beaming and striding on past him towards the parking lot.

 

“Back on the force. We’ve gotta find this guy.”

 

Benny sighed. “Alright. Where are we startin’?”

 

“Reckon we should head back to his place, look for som’m that can lead us the right way.”

 

Benny grunted, nodding. “I’ll call up Jo, then, get a couple more officers to meet us there,” he said. He rolled his eyes to the small Petco box on Dean’s desk, then, snorting. “How’s about you take your new… _friend,”_ he drawled out the word, “home, then meet us at the place.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Dean agreed, picking up the Petco box from his desk. “I'll be back.”

 

Benny nodded, heading out of the police station with Dean, leading Dean over to his cruiser and pulling away from the station. Benny had apparently found the Impala still parked not too far from the home Dean had followed the murderer to, because Benny didn’t even need to ask Dean where it was, carting Dean the ten or so minutes over to the house, which now stood dark and quiet in the earning evening, no longer anyone inside to occupy it. Quickly, Dean moved his Petco box and his couple of bags of “hamster care supplies” from the cruiser and over into his Impala, buckling the box into the passenger seat and tossing the supplies into the backseat.

 

“Alright, little guy,” Dean sighed, throwing the car into drive. “Hang on tight.” He headed home, down the suburban back roads and back to the city proper, humming to himself as he parked in front of his tiny split level and brought his hamster and all of his supplies inside. After the day Dean had had-- which had ranged from shocking, to odd, to _really_ odd, to fairly great, if he said so himself-- he was on edge, eyes peeled for anything, ready to get back out there and prove himself, to catch the man he’d been with this afternoon, ready for this whole situation to be done, ended, case closed.

 

It was almost strange, then, really, that he didn’t actually notice that his lights were already on in his apartment as he came in, merely coming inside, turning away from his unnoticed, illuminated living room to close and lock the door, then turning back, already trying to think of where his new pet’s setup was going to go--

 

\-- just in time to jerk back into the front door as the murderer, live and in-person, all black hair and bright blue eyes, stood not two feet from Dean’s face, as if he’d appeared from thin-fucking-air, a small mug of coffee between his hands.

 

What the fuck.

 

For some unknowable reason, the first words out of Dean’s mouth were: “Did you use my coffee maker?”

 

The man blinked back at him. “I did,” he said simply. “Though it took a couple of tries to get it to work, I think you might try investing in a newer one soon.”

 

“Oh, you're right,” Dean replied, “I should’ve made you a pot before I left in case you decided to _sneak into my house_ while I was gone. How rude of me.”

 

The man frowned. “I didn’t sneak in,” he insisted, “I had to _break_ in. Did you know that you leave all of your doors and windows locked?”

 

“Yeah, buddy,” Dean agreed. “There's a reason for that. I'm lookin’ at him right now.”

 

“Anyway,” the murderer continued easily, as if Dean hadn’t answered, “I found two types of coffee in your pantry, but I wasn’t sure which one you liked more, so I just made plain black because it was the most used and I figured that’s the one you would have preferred.”

 

“So you picked the kind of coffee you thought I'd like best, and drank it all for yourself?” Dean asked, bewildered.

 

The man wrinkled his nose. “No,” he insisted. “I only drank _some_ of it. I left the rest for you.” Dean raised his brows.

 

“You made me coffee?” he asked. “Granted, you're probably just tryin’ ‘a dose me up with som’m you slipped in there, but hey. Sweet gesture.”

 

“I mean, I was going to put sugar in,” the man replied, cocking his head, “but I didn’t know how much you took with it, so I just left the pitcher alone.”

 

“You're tryin’a tell me you didn't lace my coffee with anything? Nothin’ to knock me out, no rat poison, nothin’?”

 

The man frowned again. “Rat poison is for rats,” he said carefully, as if he needed to be totally sure Dean knew that, but saying it in a way as to not _totally_ insult Dean. “Not people.”

 

“Unless you're tryin’a off ‘em,” Dean grumbled.

 

“Come have coffee,” the man insisted, once again, as he seemed to frequently do, speaking as though Dean hadn’t. “It’ll be cold soon.”

 

“You first,” Dean said, gesturing to the carafe. “I wanna see you pour it, make sure I don't get roofied.”

 

The man shrugged, moving to the coffee pot and pouring himself a bit more, popping four sugar cubes in and stirring them up. He raised the mug to his lips after a moment, taking a long sip before putting the cup down.

 

“Pour me some, then,” Dean huffed, reluctant. “What'd you come back here for, huh?”

 

“What do you mean?” the man asked, pouring Dean a mug of coffee and passing it over.

 

“There are thousands of coffee makers you could use in Lawrence,” Dean replied. “Probably two dozen on this street alone. So what’s so special about mine?” The man shrugged, sipping at his mug.

 

“I’m pretty sure _you_ were the one looking for _me_ , Dean,” he said simply. Dean narrowed his eyes.

 

“What's your name?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Your name,” Dean repeated. “You know mine. Obviously. We should level the playing field a little.”

 

“Technically I had to find your name out myself,” the man replied simply.

 

“Yeah, and technically I shouldn't be shootin’ the shit with you in my kitchen, but here we are. Now, come on. I know it's som'm weird, som’m like…”

 

The man pouted. “That’s a little rude,” he muttered. “You have an occasional knack for being an… an _ass_ , Dean,” he said, calmly so, as if in some kind of realization that didn’t sit just right with him. Dean raised an eyebrow.

 

“Not to be blunt, buddy, but let's not forget who’s the _mass murderer_ here,” he replied. “‘Cause it ain't me.”

 

“I don’t see why you have to bring that up.” Dean shrugged.

 

“Alright, then. Let's ignore that. Let's ignore that you're a serial killer and I'm a cop. What's your name?” Dean coaxed again, desperate to put a name to that face.

 

“I don’t see why you really need it, Dean. It’s just a label.”

 

“We gotta level the playin’ field, here,” Dean replied. “I don't like that you know my name ‘n I don't know yours,”

 

“I’m not using my knowledge of your name to demean you, Dean.”

 

“But it still gives you an upper hand…”

 

“How so?”

 

“Look, it just… would you just tell me? Or gimme a hint?”

 

“I still don’t see why I should.”

 

“Just as a gesture of good faith, huh? Come on. We bought hamsters together, I thought we were friends,” he said sarcastically.

 

“I would have bought hamsters anyway, Dean.”

 

“Hmph,” Dean grumbled. “At least gimme a letter and I'll guess?”

 

“You won’t,” the man replied simply.

 

“Lemme give it a shot,” Dean coaxed. “Three tries. Three strikes, huh?”

 

The man cocked his head like a little bird, eyes squinting slightly at Dean. “Fine,” he said.

 

“Fine,” Dean repeated. “Gimme the first letter, then.”

 

“No.”

 

“Come on,” Dean coaxed. “I can't just guess random names, we’ll be here all day…”

 

“You know all the names of my siblings and myself, Dean,” the murderer replied simply. “I know you do.” Dean raised his eyebrows, concealing his surprise that the man was aware of that fact (but, then again, this man had already surprised him _much_ more than this, and in just a day alone, really).

 

“That's right,” he agreed. “So I'll just go down the list, huh? Call the roll?”

 

“You only have three tries, Dean,” the man retorted, bringing his coffee mug to his lips. “No more.”

 

“I can do it in two,” Dean shot back, before making his first guess. “Is it… Gadreel?”

 

The man shook his head, lowering the mug. “My older brother,” he said easily. “He was always a stoic boy, anyways.”

 

“So you're the youngest?” Dean replied. “You're Raphael?”

 

“No,” he said again. “And Samandriel was the youngest, except for Rachel.”

 

“Then you're Lucifer,” Dean guessed. “A little on the nose, huh?”

 

Something dark, something deep, entered those blue eyes. “No,” he said, very quietly. “I am not Lucifer.” Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“You got bad blood with your brother?” he said, not cruelly, just… asking, naturally and plainly. “With Lucifer?”

 

“He’s been dead a long time,” the man replied flatly. “Nothing to have bad blood about.”

 

“Not even while he was alive?”

 

“That was a long time ago. And we were children.”

 

“Seems like some pretty serious fighting for kids.”

 

“You’re out of guesses,” the man said abruptly. “You didn’t guess my name.”

 

“Alright, Rumplestiltskin,” Dean relented. “No more name game.”

 

“You were the one who suggested it.”

 

“Thought I'd win.” The rustling of his hamster inside his cardboard box drew his attention, and he headed over to the kitchen table to liberate the little guy. “So where should I put him?” he asked the stranger. “Does he need… like, light, or something?” The man sighed heavily.

 

“Some,” he said. “Natural’s best, but putting him in direct sunlight would be too hot for him.” Dean nodded.

 

“Did you have pets when you were a kid?” he asked, trying to fish some information out of him, blindly dangling his questions like a hook in murky, dark waters, hoping something would catch.

 

“Not really. Stray cats came by, sometimes.” Dean hummed, digging into one of the Petco bags and assembling the hamster’s cage piece by wiry piece.

 

“So where’d the whole hamster thing come from?”

 

“What do you mean?” Dean shook out a bag of wood shavings into the bottom of the cage.

 

“Like, why get the hamsters?”

 

The man shrugged in response. “They’re small, generally easy to take care of,” he said. “Animals are significantly better company than people are.”

 

“Don’t tell me that’s why you off’em, huh? ‘Cause they're bad conversation?”

 

“You said we weren’t going to talk about that,” the murderer replied, his voice still very calm, his hands moving his mug in little circular motions, the coffee swishing gently inside the cup.

 

“Joking. You know,” Dean drawled, putting on a faux-innocent smile, “like, funny?”

 

“I know what _jokes_ are, Dean.”

 

“Could’a fooled me, buddy.”

 

“Perhaps I just don’t see much to be amused about,” the man said, his serious tone just backing up his point.

 

“Right,” Dean sighed, rolling his eyes to the heavens a moment before looking back to his hamster. “How do I pick the damn thing up anyways? He’s all… scamper-y and shit.”

 

The man straightened up from where he was leaning against the counter, setting his mug down before approaching the box. “All you do is pick them up,” he said. “Hamsters are always… ‘scamper-y’. It’s just in their nature.”

 

“Nature or not,” Dean replied, “he's a noisy little asshole. He's kinda freakin’ me out, honestly.” He made a grab for the hamster, who chittered and ran to one end of the box. The man huffed.

 

“Be kind to him, Dean,” he insisted. “He’s just frightened.” Dean sighed.

 

“Yeah, alright,” he agreed. “C’mere, li’l guy. C’mon, calm down…”

 

“Try to approach him more gently,” the man insisted, as Dean, though his words were gentle, made another motion toward the hamster that was more like a grab. “Let him smell you first so that he knows that you’re safe.” Dean made a face.

 

“How does he know what smells safe?” he teased, but when the nameless assassin affixed him with a Sam-esque bitch face, he trailed off. “Alright, alright.” He reached down to the hamster, palm up, waiting for the fuzzy little animal to clamber into his hand. While he didn’t expect it to work, not really, he was a little surprised to see the hamster actually approaching his hand after a moment, sniffing cautiously at it to determine what it was.

 

“See?” the man said, not in a _I-told-you-so_ way, but just in a calm, quiet way. “He just has to get used to you s’all.” Dean nodded, pleasantly surprised but not showing it, smirking a little as the hamster finally pawed at his hand, skittering slowly into his palm.

 

“Damn,” he said, “you’d think I was a Disney Princess or som’men.”

 

“I don’t see what that has to do with--”

 

The other man was cut off as Dean’s phone trilled loudly, unexpectedly from his pocket, and the little hamster in Dean’s hand was just startled enough to pee right then and there before it scurried off of Dean’s hand, going to hide as best as it could in the corner of its carry-out box. Dean cursed, groaning irritably as he jerked his hand back, his clean hand grabbing his phone and putting it to his ear as he stomped over to the sink to wash the hamster piss off his skin.

 

“Yeah?” Dean grunted into the phone.

 

“ _Brother_ ,” Benny’s voice came through the call. “ _Hey. Are you on your way?”_

 

Dean cursed silently, grabbing a towel to quick-dry his wet hand. “I-- not yet,” he said.

 

_“Why not? Jo and the others are already here, brother, we need to get movin’.”_

 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Dean sighed, rubbing at his temple. “I just got caught in, uh… in a little traffic, s’all.”

 

 _“Traffic,”_ Benny repeated. _“At eight o’clock at night.”_

 

 _Damn._ “Dunno what to tell you, man,” Dean replied, keeping his voice steady. “Must be som’m. I’m on my way right now, though.” He returned to the hamster, let him sniff his hand again, then scooped him up, both hands, phone tucked between shoulder and ear, and carried him over to set him in his new home.

 

_“Well, just hurry it up. We need to get on top of this while the trail is still hot.”_

 

“Right there with you. See you soon,” Dean nodded, filling up the little water dispenser and clipping it to the cage wall. Hastily, before the stranger could speak to give them both away, he hung up, sliding the phone away into his pocket. “You gotta go,” he told the brunet, already attempting to herd him towards the door.

 

The man frowned in confusion, still holding onto his cup of coffee. “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, I gotta go places, which means you gotta _leave_ ,” Dean said pointedly.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Don’t worry about it. Now, come on. We gotta go.”

 

“We?” Dean headed for the door, past him.

 

“Yeah. I gotta go, which means you also--” he gestured grandly through the open door, “--gotta go.”

 

“With you?” the man frowned. “I can’t do that.”

 

“Of course not,” Dean replied hastily. “But I can’t leave you here.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because you’re a stranger. In my house.”

 

“I’m not a stranger,” the man frowned.

 

“I don’t even know your _name_.”

 

“That doesn’t mean that you don’t know who I am.”

 

“Buddy, names are a pretty basic thing…” Dean said. “Like, step one of a friendship.”

 

The man frowned, just as a tingling noise came from his own pocket. He frowned a little more, tugging out a flip phone, opening it and pressing it to his ear. “Hello?”

 

Dean couldn’t hear anything from the phone, but the man straightened up immediately, face going very serious as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. After a couple of moments the assassin slowly set his mug down on the counter, nodding as whoever was on the phone still spoke to him, as if they’d be able to see the motion.

 

“What’s up?” Dean asked, concerned.

 

The man said nothing, didn’t even really look at him, continuing the call for another thirty seconds or so before pulling the phone from his ear, flipping it shut and shoving it away in the pocket of his oversized trench coat.

 

“Who was that?” Dean pressed, praying for a lead.

 

“I have to go,” the man said, again in that way, like Dean had never spoken at all, already turning toward the door and making a stride for it.

 

“Hang on,” Dean said, sliding in between him and the exit. “Where you goin’?”

 

“I have to go,” the man repeated, as if that completely and utterly explained it.

 

“To kill someone else, huh?” Dean asked sharply, resolutely in the stranger’s path.

 

“Dean,” the man said easily. “Please move.”

 

“No,” Dean snapped. “ _Tell me_ where you're going.”

 

“Dean. Move. I’m asking.”

 

“And I'm telling. Nobody’s going anywhere until you answer my question.”

 

The man sighed heavily. “Please don’t be difficult.” Dean just narrowed his eyes, firm and solid as ever.

 

It was almost inevitable, then, that Dean was on his back on the floor within about two seconds, barely aware of the split second in which Cas had skillfully knocked him there, and Dean, dazed as he was, was only aware of the ache in his spine before the other man suddenly loomed over him, voice quiet, still calm as he spoke.

 

“I recommend you think of a name for your hamster very soon,” he just said, very serious, still utterly straight-faced. “It’ll help you form a quicker bond with him.”

 

“Only you could make that sound like a threat,” Dean sighed from the linoleum, propping himself up in phases, now sitting back on his elbows.

 

“It’s merely a fact.” Dean huffed.

 

“Yeah, alright, Doctor Doolittle. Have fun on your murder spree,” he grumbled from where he lay.

 

“Goodbye, Dean,” the man replied easily, standing. He stepped over Dean and headed out with that, leaving with a suave that was too calm to be anything but natural grace, the easy stride of an experienced, stealthy killer, closing the door softly behind himself.

 

“Bye,” Dean agreed, loitering momentarily as he swanned out of the room. As soon as the killer was in his car and driving off, Dean was on his way out to his, to follow, staying just behind him throughout the neighborhood so he wouldn't catch on.

 

If the killer noticed Dean following him, he seemed to make no notice of that fact, driving on, out of Dean’s neighborhood and onto the main road. They drove down it for nearly fifteen minutes, about a hundred yards or so apart, just driving and driving until they were out of the main part of town, in the countryside, driving past acres and acres of grazing cows and dead crops.

 

Dean’s mind raced as they drove. What was out here that was of interest to the murderer? No one had found a victim of this particular killer this far out in the countryside before, so unless he was changing things up, it wasn’t that. Something was off, and it went deeper than the general unease of Dean’s closeness to this dangerous stranger.

 

Finally, after nearly another ten minutes, the stranger took a quick right up ahead, slipping onto a side road that Dean hadn’t seen in the looming darkness of the night. It was dark enough that the Impala could be shrouded in the depth of it, but even with the long distance he kept between himself and the Continental, turning on his headlights would have been a surefire way for the killer to notice him. That left Dean only able to go by sight alone, headlights kept firmly off as he turned onto the rocky side road as well.

 

This road wasn’t long, no more than about thirty or forty yards, and while the Continental was already out of Dean’s sight, no longer on the road before him, the path led down to only two buildings, making it thankfully obvious where Dean needed to go. Dean parked beside the first building, out of the way of the killer’s line of sight, following at distance to make sure he could observe unseen.

 

He had to check a few windows first, but finally, upon peeking into one, he saw the silhouette of a stranger, a man, who appeared to be waiting uncomfortably, dressed in a button up and slacks. The man looked eerily similar to the other victims, Dean noted, and tucked that fact away as he saw a door open on the other side of the room, the killer sweeping inside, coat fluttering behind himself. Dean stayed silent, watching, waiting, with the same kind of adrenaline-filled nerves as he had when he played hide-and-seek as a kid.

 

The killer swept right up to the other man, who began to speak, only to be abruptly cut off by the murderer stabbing him in the throat with a long, silver, tapered blade. The murder was so abrupt, so odd without any foreplay or otherwise, that Dean was completely taken aback, his eyes glued to the man as the killer shoved the knife in deeper, the victim gurgling and panicking, just as shocked and alarmed as blood ran down his throat and onto his chest. Dean felt his stomach twist and roil, though only barely, (it was sometimes disconcerting how little this sort of thing bothered him now) stepping back. Every fibre of his being wanted to rush in and apprehend the man, but without backup, he knew he'd be more harm than good.

 

Bobby’s words rang through his head: _“I make all the calls, and you don’t make any without consultin’ me first_ , _”_ and he reached for his phone, punching in the Chief's personal phone number, fidgeting eagerly.

 

“Come on, come on, pick up, pick up…” he murmured, ducking away from the window to flatten himself back against the building’s warm brick wall.

 

The phone finally picked up, just as Dean thought it might go to voicemail. _“Hello?”_ Bobby grunted.

 

“Bobby,” Dean hissed, his voice barely there. “Listen, I can't talk, but I'm gonna need some backup. I turned the location on on the car’s GPS; I'm at some warehouse. I just watched our guy up his body count by one.”

 

 _“Where?”_ Bobby demanded, thankfully not trying to question him further.

 

“I don't know,” Dean replied. “We’re way out here. Still in the county, I know that, but…”

 

 _“You know what direction you drove? North, south, what?”_ Dean looked around, as if that would help.

 

“Southeast, I think. I… there's…a river?” he ventured. “I don't know. Just get one of the keyboard monkeys to find me on GPS.”

 

 _“Don’t let this guy go this time,”_ Bobby insisted. _“We’ll be there quick as we can.”_ Dean nodded.

 

“You got it, boss.”

 

 _“Good man,”_ Bobby grunted, before cutting off, the line going dead. Dean huffed, turning back around to look for the killer, lingering close to the wall that provided him shelter. Upon looking, however, he was just in time to see the door across the room, the one the killer had originally come through, swing shut, the bloody, motionless body of the victim now the only person in sight.

 

_Fuck._

 

Unafraid of being caught now, Dean made a mad dash to the stranger’s car, knowing that was where he'd be headed next. He beat him to it, but not by much, the pair equidistant from the car when they spotted each other. The killer just kept walking, really, merely watching Dean as he strode to the Continental, digging his keys from his trench coat pocket with a partially-bloody hand.

 

“Hey,” Dean interrupted, getting in between the door and the man. “Where do you think you're goin’?”

 

“Home,” the man said plainly.

 

“The fuck you are,” Dean replied plainly. “You're not going anywhere.”

 

The killer frowned. “Why not?”

 

“You just killed someone,” Dean snapped, gesturing towards the building. “I watched you. You're not just gonna head home after that.”

 

“Yes I am,” the man replied, just as easily. “I’m tired, Dean, and a shower would really be nice--”

 

“You can shower in the state pen,” Dean dismissed irritatedly. Being confronted by the reality of the stranger’s life, that no matter how endearing, he was still a cold-blooded murderer, that stung.

 

The killer groaned. “Dean, please,” he said tiredly. “I’m really not in the mood for an argument with you.”

 

“I'm not _arguing_ ,” he snipped. “ _Arguing_ makes it sound like this is up for debate. It's not.”

 

“Dean, come on.”

 

“No,” Dean replied. “I’m not letting you get away with this just because we’re all buddy-buddy. You’re going to prison. Today.”

 

“Please move,” was all the man said in response. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Dean opened his arms.

 

“Go ahead, pal. Try me,” he said, grateful of the thick Kevlar vest under his shirt. The man, however, just shook his head.

 

“I won’t fight you.”

 

“Oh, now you’re gonna play all moral?” Dean challenged. “Seems pretty passive for a _serial fucking killer._ ”

 

“This doesn’t have anything to do with morality,” the man said quietly.

 

“Oh, yeah? Then why do you do it? Shits and giggles, huh?” Dean challenged. “Or maybe it gets you off?”

 

“Move, Dean. Please.”

 

“Answer me.”

 

“This is your last chance, Dean.”

 

“Answer my goddamn question,” Dean repeated, looking out past the stranger to the approaching police cars, not quite close enough for the man to notice but still a comfort to Dean.

 

The killer narrowed his eyes and, just like before, seemed to move with an unnatural speed as he strode forward, grabbing Dean and shoving him up firmly against the Continental, restraining him almost painfully. He was so close so fast, his face literally inches from Dean’s, his thin hands stronger than they looked as they pinned Dean warningly in place.

 

“What're you gonna do now, huh?” Dean breathed into the space between them. “Gonna kill me just like you killed all those other people?” If they hadn't been killer and cop, criminal and policeman, Dean probably would've leaned in and kissed him; they were so close, and his eyes were so blue, and the air seemed to crackle, with sexual energy or anger he couldn't tell.

 

The man narrowed his eyes at Dean’s words, and he almost seemed to lean _closer._ There was literally _millimeters_ between them, and for once the killer’s eyes weren’t blank or clueless, they were _intent._ He looked real. He looked dangerous. He parted his lips to speak, and Dean could feel the exhale of air on his own mouth.

 

Just then, as if from nowhere, a dark car with no plates and headlights turned off came shooting toward them out of the darkness, turning and skidding to a stop just feet from them, sending chunks of dirt and gravel flying. The back door shot open, and Dean saw the killer watch him a bare moment longer before snapping his mouth shut, the blue eyes peeling away as the man released Dean and jerked back, turning and heading for the black car, leaving Dean where he was as the police cars finally came into better view, lights flashing.

 

The minute the man was in the backseat, backdoor not even closed yet, the car took off, out of the warehouse’s gravel drive and back into the darkness, speeding easily away, like they’d never been there at all, leaving Dean where he was, half-stunned, and half-quickly-becoming-enraged.

 

“Fuck!” Dean screamed after the car, grabbing a bottle that sat on the ground, hurling it after them. “Fuck you, motherfucker!” He was so angry, so distant, that he didn’t even notice all the police officers in a half-circle behind him. Benny, Bobby, Jo, the rest of the office, all standing around behind him.

 

“Brother!” Benny barked, getting his attention, jogging up. He was in his own Kevlar, his gun at the ready. “What’s happenin’? Where is he?”

 

“He’s gone, Benny,” Dean huffed. “He fucking drove away, the asswipe. Got in a getaway car and took off.”

 

“Are you fuckin’ _kiddin’ me?”_ Bobby barked, stomping up, flaming with anger. “I told you to keep yer’ eye on’em! I told you to keep him here!”

 

“I did!” Dean shot back. “He was all-- I was trying to bait him, to keep him here, but then he threatened me-- fuck, he moves so damn quick, he just got in this getaway car and--” He paused. “The car. His car’s still here.”

 

“The what now?” Benny demanded, before his eyes found the gold Continental. “Shit, is that his?”

 

“Yeah,” Dean nodded, heading towards the car. “I bet it’s registered to him. Or maybe to someone who’s in charge of him; whoever sends him after his marks.”

 

“You think he’s got someone else in this with him?” Jo asked as Benny and Officer Trenton carefully approached the car, guns raised in caution.

 

“Someone had to come pick him up,” Dean replied. “Someone gives him his marks; he’ll take a phone call, and all of a sudden he’s off on his next job. We find out who’s on the other end of that line, we can crack this thing wide open.”

 

“You get any hints on who that contact might be?” Bobby grunted, crossing his arms. Dean shook his head.

 

“No sir. When he gets these calls, he doesn’t talk. Just kinda stands there, listens, then heads out.”

 

“Guy sounds like the soldier type,” Officer Trenton, Cole, muttered, as he and Benny started looting in the Continental, looking for evidence.

 

“Watch your prints,” Bobby reminded from the main gathering of people, dispatching someone to look for tire tracks as others headed to the warehouse.

 

“Yessir,” Dean called hastily back to Cole. “He acts it, sometimes. But other times you can't even tell he's a killer. Other times he seems almost like a kid.”

 

“‘Cause he’s a damn psychopath,” Bobby muttered, before looking to Dean. “I wanna see the victim. Let’s go.”

 

“Let's,” Dean agreed. “Haven't gotten a good look at him yet.”

 

“So you don’t know why Killer McGee might’a gone after’em?” Dean turned to Benny.

 

“No, I don't know why ‘Killer McGee’ went after him,” he replied, a little teasing. “Although this guy looked looked a little like the other viones he’s gone after. Shorter, blond, kinda stubbly….”

 

Bobby frowned. “Like Welsh and burger guy.”

 

“And the guy from the other warehouse, yeah.”

 

“S’odd,” Bobby muttered. “How many folks lookin’ like that can actually live in this area, anyways?” Dean shrugged.

 

“Dunno,” he replied. “He must be runnin’ out.” Dean chuckled. “Maybe I’ll be next, huh?”

 

“I jus’ wonder _why,”_ Bobby said, ignoring the little jab. “He’s obviously got some beef goin’, but what for? Why’s he just jumpin’ cities and killin’ off short blond folks?”

 

“Hell, maybe he’s got some kinda vendetta,” he replied. “I dunno.”

 

“Guess it dudn’t really matter,” Bobby muttered as the two entered the big room where Dean had seen the victim die just minutes before. “Vendetta or no, he’s goin’ to jail.” Dean nodded.

 

“You’re damn right he is.”

 

“Sir,” called Kevin Tran suddenly from where he was knelt next to the victim, backed by a couple of other officers and homicide pathologists, looking around at Bobby. “You need to see this.” Bobby made his way over to the young officer, followed closely by Dean.

 

“Whatcha got, son?”

 

“Well, he’s got marks like the others,” Kevin informed him. “But there’s something else, too. Something new.” Dean raised his eyebrows.

 

“Show me.”

 

Kevin nodded, motion to two of the officers. Gingerly, hands carefully gloved, the two twisted the man over onto his stomach, and Dean saw immediately what Kevin was talking about, kneeling on the ground by the victim’s side. Other symbols and sigils littered the man’s body in several places, just as they had on the other victims, but right in the dead center of the man’s chest was a crudely carved trio of letters, still quickly leaking fresh blood: _‘CJN’._

 

“The fuck?” Bobby said, frowning. “‘C-J-N’?” Dean’s brain clicked immediately, however, pieces falling into place in a sudden burst of realization, the list of names running on lightspeed through his brain-- the N for Novak, the J for James--

 

Only one ‘C’ name. Only one.

 

“Castiel,” he said suddenly, lifting his head.

 

“What’s that now?” Bobby grunted, scowling.

 

“His name. His name is Castiel James Novak.” He stood up. “We can find him now. He knew my name, but I never knew his. Now we’ve evened the playing field.”

 

“You think these’re initials?” Bobby demanded, ignoring momentarily Dean’s comment about his and the killer’s ‘playing field’. “Why would he do that? He’d be bound to know we’d figure it out.”

 

“It all checks. It matches the list of kids. It can’t be anything else.”

 

“But why would he leave his damn initials?” Bobby demanded again firmly, more loudly. “It’s gotta be a ruse, Winchester. He’s makin’ us think he’s this Cas-teel guy, when maybe he’s usin’ one’a the names of his brothers to keep us from trackin’em down.” Dean shook his head.

 

“That’s not it. He wouldn’t--”

 

“I get that you wanna be the one to crack this case, idjit,” Bobby hissed, “but come _on,_ now. He’s fuckin’ messin’ with your head, tryin’ to mess with _all_ our heads, and the fact that it’s _workin’_ on ya’ means that he’s tryin’ to use it to his advantage here.” Dean narrowed his eyes.

 

“I ain’t stupid, Bobby,” he replied. “I been played before, but this ain’t that. This feels different.”

 

Bobby scoffed. “It _‘feels’_ different,” he repeated in a mix of disbelief and irritation. “Really, Winchester? It just fuckin’ _feels_ different, now?” Dean made an angry noise.

 

“Look,” he snapped. “Whether you’re gonna be behind me or not, I’m solvin’ this case. I’m catchin’ this guy, and I’m turnin’ him in. Now, you can be part’a this, or you can sit on your hands ‘n refuse to believe I know what I’m about here. I’m gonna leave that up t’you.”

 

“You better watch your damn mouth, boy,” Bobby spat, viciously irritated, while Kevin and the others watched with wide eyes. “You think just ‘cause I half-raised ya’ I’m gonna put up with you actin’ a fuckin’ fool? So help me God, I’ll pull your ass right off this fuckin’ case again, Winchester, you hear me? You ain’t the chief, _I_ am, and I make the damn rules, the damn calls, the damn decisions. _Not you._ So you better watch your smart-ass mouth right the fuck now before you get thrown out on your ass again.” Dean looked at him for a long moment.

 

“Bobby, this lead’s all we got,” Dean said plainly. “It’s the best we can do right now. If it’s a dead end, it’s a dead end, but we can’t risk passin’ it up just ‘cause it might fall through. We gotta give it a shot.”

 

“Go home, Winchester,” Bobby snapped stiffly in return. “We’re gonna finish up here. You need to take a fuckin’ minute away. I don’t wanna see you in that station tomorrow if you ain’t gonna get off this one-track road you won’t fuckin’ sway from long enough to _think._ You go sleep on it, and when you’re ready to actually talk some damn sense with someone who’s been on this force ten times longer than you, who _knows_ ten times more than you fuckin’ do about this job, _then_ you can come in. Understood?” Dean looked torn for a second, ready to snarl something back, before his more intelligent side won out.

 

“Understood,” he grumbled, and stalked quickly out, blowing past Benny and Jo without approaching them. None of them, thankfully, tried to stop him, allowing Dean to go straight to his car and shoot off into the night, furious.

 

~*~

 

The twenty minute or so of the drive home gave Dean the barest amount of time to try relaxing, and he managed to blow off just a little steam between his loud music and the roar of his baby. By the time he parked outside his tiny rental, he was only about as half as pissed as he’d been upon leaving, huffing as he stomped up the driveway and the handful of stairs that led to his door, letting himself inside.

 

Immediately the smell of coffee hit his nostrils, hot and thick and _fresh,_ and, as soon as Dean heard the sound of a shoe scuffing on his kitchen floor in that next moment, he was _livid._

 

He stormed to the kitchen, spotted the dark-haired man -- Castiel -- and instantly grabbed him, shoving him against the wall.

 

“What the _hell_ are you doing in my house?” he snarled, their faces inches apart, pinning Castiel to the kitchen wall. “What the _fuck_ do you think you’re _fucking_ doing?”

 

“I made coffee,” Castiel said easily, like he had before, earlier that night, and his unconcerned face just made Dean even more mad, made his anger shoot higher and higher like a lit rocket, burning with rage.

 

“You _made coffee--”_ Dean repeated, half to himself, almost wordless with fury. “You humiliated me in front of my boss, you threatened my fucking life, not to mention the fact that you _killed a man_ , _fled the scene of the crime_ , then _broke into my house so you could make coffee_.” Castiel blinked at him.

 

“It’s got honey in it,” he said simply, and Dean just felt something vicious inside himself _snap._ He grabbed Castiel again, flinging him into the refrigerator.

 

“You think this is some kind of fucking _game_ ? You think this is _funny_ ? People are _dead,_ you heartless _fuck._ People are _dead_ , and it’s _your fault._ But you don’t even fucking _care,_ do you? You’re so fucked up in the head, you don’t care who you hurt, you piece of _shit._ ” He threw his fist into the wall, just beside Castiel’s head, not intending to hit him but proving that he could if he wanted to. “You’re selfish, and you’re greedy, and you’re evil. You’re fucking _evil,_ Castiel.”

 

Once again, Castiel just blinked at him, that stupid _blankness_ in his eyes again, as if he just didn’t fucking _realize_ what Dean was saying to him. “Your coffee’s going to get cold,” he said finally, after a minute of terse silence, and yeah, Dean was going to fucking hit him.

 

He almost did, too, his hand swinging towards Castiel’s face, fueled only by pure frustration and rage, but Castiel’s hand shot up, fingers latching around Dean’s wrist before it could land in his face. He jerked, twisting, and just like back at the warehouse Castiel shoved Dean back up against the fridge, pinning him there like a hunted animal with a strength that came easily, gracefully. He was closer than ever, his breath on Dean’s skin and Dean’s breath on his, his skin prickling with an instinct to fight.

 

It felt like they were like that for an eternity but also for a moment at the same time, when in reality, it was only ten seconds before Dean was shoving Castiel off of him, pushing him against the far wall, hands on his wrists pinning them to the wall. He tugged him around, against one wall, then the other, before pushing him back against the fridge, their bodies shoved together, one long line of sinew and bone against another.

 

“Don’t you have anything else to say for yourself?” Dean snarled, his voice rumbling up through his chest where it was pinned against Castiel’s. “Aren’t you gonna make some dumb joke?”

 

Castiel just stared back at him, his stare expressionless but not blank as it sometimes was, his eyes dark, deep, beyond what Dean could try to interpret. He blinked, his jaw set tightly, his body warm and lean against Dean’s as he opened his mouth to answer again.

 

“I don’t ‘joke’,” Castiel said finally, very quietly.

 

“Is that right?” Dean challenged. “Then what d’you call all your bullshit about coffee, huh? What d’you call that?”

 

“I was just letting you know. Your coffee will get cold very fast if you leave it out like this.” Dean huffed.

 

“What's it gonna take to get a fucking rise outta you, huh?” he demanded, shoving Cas up against the fridge a little harder this time, hands fisted in his shirt. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You're like a goddamn robot.”

 

“That’s not accurate. I’d have to be non-organic to be--”

 

All of a sudden, out of near fucking _nowhere_ , Dean was grabbing him by the jaw, and then he was smashing their mouths together in a hurried, hot, fury-driven kiss. It was more of an experiment-- at least, that's what Dean told himself-- just to see if this would bother the murderer even a bit, even just a _little_ , if being kissed and pinned up against a kitchen appliance would phase him in a way none of Dean’s other behaviors had done.

 

What Dean didn’t quite expect was for Castiel’s mouth to instantly open up to Dean’s when it smushed up against his own, the killer’s hands fisting in the back of Dean’s shirt, and somehow it almost just made Dean _angrier_ , strong and fast adrenaline of all kinds pumping through his blood, all over his body as he _kissed_ a _murderer_ and the murderer _kissed back._

 

Dean was bewildered, confused and irritated and more turned on than he should’ve been, than he was _allowed_ to have been, but that didn't stop him from turning his head to one side, kissing harder and deeper, their bodies getting closer, two lines of burning hot muscle pressed sinew-to-sinew against each other. He pulled back for a second, to breathe, eyes slipping around Cas’ face for a reaction.

 

The other man’s eyes were blown big and dark, his cheeks just as red as his lips, and he looked all of a mix of surprised, desperate, curious, wanting, _needing_ , no longer blank-faced and eyed, and it was just fucking bad, fucking _illegal_ , but it was just so fucking _hot_. It was hot, and Dean was weak, and lonely-- it had been too long, by his standards, too fucking long since he'd last been with someone like this-- so he channeled that anger, that whirlwind of emotions into another kiss, hauling Cas from the fridge towards the cabinets, slamming him against those this time, sliding a hand between the clattering wooden doors and Cas’ body to palm at his ass through his trousers.

 

Castiel made a noise that was almost a fucking _whimper_ , panting hard and open-mouthed against Dean’s mouth, his tongue and Dean’s smashed somewhere between the cavities of their warm, spit-slick mouths, their teeth practically clashing together as they kissed ferociously. Castiel’s hands shot up, digging into Dean’s hair, clutching almost painfully hard at the strands of mousey-brown hair, clinging to it like his life depended on it.

 

That spike of pain pushed Dean on, and before his brain knew what his body was doing he was grinding his uniform-covered hips into Cas’, his badge between them, clipped to his belt, digging into them as he pushed his hips against Cas and Cas against the wall, his hand still grabbing and kneading at the warm roundness of the killer’s-- no, Cas’-- ass.

 

Castiel made another desperate noise, more like a moan this time, guttural and broken in the back of his throat as he tugged and dragged at Dean’s hair. He ground back just as eagerly against Dean like it were of pure instinct to do so, his body already just as hot with desire as his mouth was. One of his hands moved to clutch hard at Dean’s shoulder as he hiked a leg up haphazardly around Dean’s thigh, pulling Dean closer, desperately so.

 

They devolved quickly from there-- Dean hitched his hands under Cas’ thighs, Castiel hoisted up and shoved between Dean’s body and the wall. Dean’s mouth moved to Castiel’s neck, lips and teeth and tongue on smooth, tan, salty skin, and Castiel’s head fell back with a resounding _smack_ , eager gasps dragging from his lips and mixing with earnest groans, his legs tightening hard around Dean’s hips, holding on as if for dear life. Dean just fisted a hand in Cas’ hair, yanking back on the dark mess to expose more of his neck to Dean’s marking, sucking, biting mouth.

 

Castiel made a sound like a _yowl_ , his gasping now backed by little, thick grunts in between his ragged panting exhales, and he was bearing a little low in Dean’s arms now as Dean’s grip on him slipped slightly, but it allowed the perfect angle, as Dean shoved him up against the wall again, for their hips to rock together, smashing and rubbing and canting forward against each other. Messily, hastily, Dean slid a hand into Castiel’s slacks, unbuttoning the button and wrapping fingers around his length, which was already hot and hard in his hand. He glided his hand up and down, quick and rough, precome thin and sticky between his fingers and on his skin.

 

Castiel jerked awkwardly into Dean’s hand, moaning raggedly, flushing red and eyes blowing ever bigger and darker with desperate lust. His nails curled hard down into Dean’s shoulders, almost painfully so. Dean’s senses hummed, feeling pleasure and pain all over at once as Cas’ nails dug semi-circles into his tan skin. He left his companion’s cock neglected for a moment, only to open his own pants, lean into Cas further, and wrap his hand as much as he could around both of them, settling back into that furious rhythm he held up before.

 

Castiel made that same loud, yowling noise, hips canting awkwardly, desperate for more of the heat, the pleasure. He drug his fingers up into Dean’s hair, knotting his grip in it and yanking Dean back into a teeth-knocking kiss. Dean reciprocated, measure for measure, the two of them sloppy and graceless but completely oblivious, each aware only of the warm body of the other. He could feel his knees get weak, his body get close, holding out for as long as he could as if he had something to prove.

 

Meanwhile, Castiel was making less than graceful noises into Dean’s mouth now, his grunts getting more breathy, turning nearly into whines, and Dean could tell the other man was just as close as he was, just as desperate to come over Dean’s warm, tight grip. Dean kept it up, even faster now, holding him even tighter, his hips rocking up into his own hand to drag his length against Cas’. He swallowed up Cas’ noises, only to draw out more, determined to see the near-stranger a flushed, satisfied mess.

 

It didn’t take much more, and Dean got his reward in the form of a loud, drawn out, dragging moan, Castiel’s hips bucking wildly as he jerked and jerked into Dean’s hand, gasping and panting as he came over Dean’s hand, spilling hot and hard and fast. That was all it took to pull Dean over with him-- that flushed red face all screwed up with pleasure, those beautiful, loud groans as they painted Dean’s hand and their stomachs. He caught his breath, gasping against Cas’ mouth, feeling somehow out of body, not entirely present.

 

Castiel whimpered in bursts that got slowly weaker as he came down, his body sagging in Dean’s weakening arms, just as the true realization of what was happening, of what he’d just _done,_ hit Dean a little slowly at first, lagging, then like a wall of bricks right to Dean’s face.

 

 _Shit._ Fucking _shit._ He looked at Cas, looked between them at his hands and the smears of come on the tails of his blue button-down, and froze, stock-still. What was he supposed to do? Treat the guy like a normal lay, let him sleep it off on his couch, make him something to eat and send him on his way? That felt wrong, but on some level, so did just shoving him back outside, sticky and exhausted and dazed.

 

As he flickered his own wide eyes up, he caught Castiel’s, which were now looking back at him with the same range of conflicting, shocked emotions that Dean was sure were on his own face. Castiel blinked at him before pulling his head back, a little fast, panting weakly as he stared back at Dean, the two of them caught in their moments of _what the hell just happened here?_

 

“Uh…” Dean managed finally, not exactly eloquent. He gestured to a kitchen chair. “Siddown.”

 

Castiel stared hard back at him, eyes big. “You’re still holding me,” he said slowly, after a moment.

 

“Oh. Yeah.” Dean stepped back, tucking himself back into his underwear. The pants and shirt were a lost cause, so he stripped them both off and tossed them aside, heading to the sink to dampen a paper towel. “So, that was, uh… weird, huh?” he asked with an awkward laugh, back to Castiel.

 

Castiel stared back at him, dick tucked away but pants still unbuttoned, hair crazed, his stomach smeared with come. “Weird,” he said slowly, not in questioning or agreement, more just to say it, before slowly taking a seat in one of Dean’s kitchen chairs.

 

“Yeah. Weird.”

 

Castiel said nothing, very quiet, expression unreadable as he blinked blankly at the far wall.

 

“So, um, just wipe yourself off, you know… tidy up a little,” Dean said, awkwardly thrusting the warm paper towel towards Castiel. “If you need the bathroom….”

  
“The bathroom,” Castiel repeated carefully, like a child would, still appearing to be coming to some kind of terms with himself about what exactly had just happened as he blinked up at Dean.

 

"Yeah, there's, uh… soap, and more towels,” Dean said. “It's down there.” He pointed over down the hall, not glancing far from Cas.

  
“Oh. Right.”

  
“Right,” Dean repeated. “Anyways. Um.” He wiped his palms on his pants, fidgety, uncertain.

  
“So I should… go clean up.”

  
“You can do that here,” Dean shrugged. “I mean, Jesus, I just jacked you off, personal space isn't really on the table anymore.”

  
The other man actually-- actually went _red_. “Um. Okay,” he said, sounding more than distinctly uncomfortable.

  
“Oh, _now_ you're flustered?” Dean teased-- okay, maybe it was a little more than teasing. “Not when you were coming all over both of us?”

  
His own words had Dean snapping back into the situation again himself, however, and then he remembered, _again_ , that he’d just fucking _jacked off_ a fucking _serial killer._

  
“What _was_ up with that, by the way? You were just fine with it, huh?” he asked. “ _More_ than fine, even, you seemed pretty goddamn into it, with all those noises you kept making. And now here we are, two awkward assholes just sitting in a goddamn kitchen.”

  
Castiel just stared at him again, even as Dean felt himself keep babbling while he turned to the sink to wash the dishes inside of it, his hands twitching with the need to do something, anything to work through just how awkward this was, not to mention illegal and all kinds of messed up.

  
“Like, I don't even know-- I’d be lying if I said I didn't wanna fuck you, but only, you know, in the fantasy way. Never really-- but you were standing there, and everything about you was so, just… god. Bizarre. And I wanted so bad to get a _rise_ out of you, you know, and I thought for sure if I kissed you, I thought--”

  
As he babbled on, Dean was suddenly and swiftly cut off as he felt a sudden brush of unexpectedly frigid air against his back, like a gust of... wind?

  
What the hell?

  
Frowning, he turned, sponge and dirty bowl still between his hands, to find the door to his backyard wide open, and the seat where Castiel had just been sitting completely, totally empty, the towel Dean had given to him left in a crumpled ball on top of the wooden tabletop.

  
As always, Castiel was _gone_. Gone like a whisper, like the brush of wind that had left goosebumps raised up and down Dean’s spine, as if a leftover touch, stained fingerprints on Dean’s skin.

  
Dean stared at the seat for a moment, like an idiot, before his eyes flickered over to the window, just in time to see a dark flash against the treeline of his neighborhood-- Castiel. All he could do was stand and watch as the man ran off again, just as inhumanly graceful as ever as he loped away from the apartment, leaving Dean in complete _shock_ fromall that had happened in the space of the last few minutes.

 

His phone rang so suddenly then that it startled him, and he jerked, cursing as he dropped the bowl and the smashed into pieces on the ground. Jerking out his phone, he hit the answer button, shoving it up to his ear. "Hello?"

 

 _"Dean, hey,"_ came Sam's voice over the line, and Dean could practically hear his brother frowning at the tension radiating from Dean's voice.  _"Everything alright, man?"_

 

Dean turned away from the mess of his broken bowl, looking dead-on out the window again as a certain...  _feeling_ swept over him. His eyes scanned the back yard carefully, searching the darkness, pursing his lips as he watched the treeline edging his neighborhood. There was definitely no one there, and yet....

 

Well. He just couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was being  _watched._

 

 _"Dean?"_ Sam asked again.

 

Dean exhaled, just as he almost, _almost,_ thought he saw something tan whip around the base of a tree trunk and vanish across the way. His shoulders slumped a little.

 

"Yeah, man," Dean grunted into the phone. "Yeah, everything's... everything's fine."

 

~*~

 


End file.
